Dr. Macayla Richards | Primary Care in Tigard

Dr. Macayla Richards offers primary care in Tigard for children, teens, and adults, with a focus on mental health and personalized treatment plans that reflect the way each individual body works.

It Starts with You

Dr. Macayla Richards approaches patient care through the lens of how the body processes both stress and medication. She often cites a metric that shapes her work: while the brain accounts for two percent of body weight, it uses roughly a quarter of the body’s total energy. The fact, she says, highlights how individual physiology shapes the way people respond to treatment. “Different people can have different metabolic factors that influence how we process meds.” Some metabolize medication slowly. Others, she explains, “may process something really, really fast and have a ton of side effects from not a very high dose.”

A Broad Approach to Primary Care

Her scope is wide. “First and foremost, I do primary care with everyone,” she says. Routine visits, acute concerns, and follow-up after urgent care all fall within her work. She also notes her engagement in trauma-informed practice: “I also do trauma informed care, especially for sensitive exams. And in a world that has so much trauma in it, this is really important.”

Alongside general medicine, she provides extensive mental health support. “I also do a lot of mental health care and I love working with this.” Her patient panel includes individuals with ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder. She views these conditions as central to understanding a patient’s daily life: “Each of these things… changes how we process and interact with our world.”

Dr. Macayla also offers gender-affirming care, saying, “I love working with someone and helping them feel more okay in their own body every day.”

Considering the Whole Patient

Whether treating with herbs or pharmaceuticals, she emphasizes the same principle: “I’m considering everything that’s going on with that individual… and trying to get the most amount of good for the least amount of side effects.” With botanical medicine, she reviews “all of the different herbs that are used for certain conditions, but also what each herb is used for across the entire body.” With prescriptions, she looks for “what is going to cover the most amount of conditions that person has… for the least amount of side effects.”

Her approach to mental health extends beyond pharmacology. “I also do a lot of lifestyle and counseling. I help people navigate things that medications don’t cover,” she says. Some concerns cannot be addressed “with a simple medication or herb,” and require an understanding of the entire lived experience: “We get the whole experience that someone is having and… help them navigate things easier in so many different ways.”

A Passion for Learning and Mindful Living

Be prepared to meet a doctor whose professionalism is balanced by genuine warmth. Dr. Macayla describes herself without hesitation: “I love games, whether it’s board games, tabletop games… or video games.” She values the ease and connection they create: “I love being able to be immersed in the moment… and enjoying that camaraderie.”

She also calls herself “a massive crier,” “the biggest baby of my entire family,” and “a giant dog person.” The first thing she did when she lived on her own, she says, was “get a dog.” She mentions another quality she is known for: “I do give wonderful hugs. I come from a long line of excellent huggers… it is an art form in this family.”

These offer a window into how she interacts with patients: direct, open, and unguarded, without losing precision in clinical reasoning.

Schedule an Appointment Today

If you’re looking for a naturopathic doctor who accounts for how biology, experience, and environment interact, Dr. Macayla Richards is now accepting new patients at Northwest Integrative Medicine!