Dr. Stuart Lee Oken, MD

Takes time bt spots but one helluva good Doc when finally get in. Has me feeling 95% better. He's perhaps the best.

I was assigned to Dr. Oken after my previous psychiatrist had retired. I have been working with Dr. Oken for many years. He has helped me through some very difficult times. He was able to get a medication that works for both chronic pain and depression covered by both Kaiser and Medicare. That one pill caused my migraine's and chronic pain to cut in half along with helping with my depression. He doesn't like benzo's much and I know why. They are addictive and terribly hard to get off of. They were the first medications he helped me get rid of. He has been helpful when I have needed to be an in-patient. He has been kind and caring. He works well with my therapist who is out-sourced from Kaiser. He is a psychiatrist first and not a therapist but has made extra time available to me when my therapist was not available. He can be hard to get appointments with due to Kaiser's method of over taxing doctor's patient lists. However, I have found that phone appointments and e-mail… work very well in getting a hold of him between office appointments. He has e-mailed me back way into the night and often on his days off. He puts in the time and effort to earn the right to be call a great psychiatrist! I am sorry others on this site have had poor experiences with him. I would recommend him highly!

Out of nowhere declined a medication I had been ordering by mail for 15 years. He did not notify me that this would happen and I did not think to call until I was out (as this had never happened before). It's also impossible to get an appt with him as well. He thinks he's more powerful than he is and anyone with such a "god complex" should not be working in the medical profession. Kaiser rates very poorly overall in the area of mental health treatment.

I was assigned to Dr. Oken at the time I requested individual counseling and/or couples counseling. He only works with medications, dispensing one or more nostrums chosen for a variety of purposes. I found his style to be seemingly charming and bearded like a regular psychiatrist might be, but also abrasive, argumentative, hostile and condescending. He changed my 50 year diagnosis -- major clinical depression with agitation and loss of affect -- to something far more critical in order to force me to try a drug I did NOT want to take.