Dr. Timothy Charles Paik Nicely, MD

Originally from Ohio, Dr. Tim Nicely attended medical school for Family Medicine at USC before moving to Humboldt County to join the medical team at United Indian Health Services (UIHS) thirty years ago. “I studied Family Medicine, and the urban setting of my medical school allowed me the opportunity to deliver something like 40 babies while I was in school. I always knew I wanted to practice Family Medicine, and the style of family practice I believe in is rounded out by delivering babies and working with women and families during pregnancy and delivery,” Nicely said. Dr. Nicely felt drawn to Indian Health and specifically to Arcata because of the town’s strong tradition of Family Practice doctors delivering babies. For the majority of his tenure at UIHS he served as medical director and was also a commissioned corps member with United States Public Health Service. He retired from his full time role with UIHS five years ago though has retained a working relationship with their prenatal program. Though his professional home was UIHS for many years he routinely held contractual relationships with other prenatal programs in our community, including Open Door, and became a formal member of the Open Door Prenatal/OB team four years ago. Dr. Nicely also consults on family planning at NorthCountry Clinic and performs vasectomy procedures for Open Door patients. Northcounty Prenatal Services is a clinic where women and couples can actively participate in choosing and planning the birth process. We are clear with our patients that [our team] considers pregnancy and childbirth normal and natural phenomena, and we are cognizant of problems as they arise. Ten years into his career Dr. Nicely completed an internship in New York specializing in high risk Obstetrics and surgical deliveries on a labor and delivery floor run by midwives. “I’ve worked with midwives for many years,” Nicely said. This specialized training supports Dr. Nicely’s dedication to the highest of quality comprehensive OB care, which he believes all birthing mothers in our community deserve access to. “The training I received in the internship program puts my practice at the same level of care as OB/GYN trained physicians, though my training was specifically for Family Practice docs- that is to say I am board certified in Family Practice, not OB/GYN, though over the course of one year of my internship I delivered 100 babies c-section, became competent and skilled with breech vaginal deliveries, cared for twin-pregnancy and delivery, as well as the more difficult medical complications that some pregnant women face”. Dr. Nicely is proud to work with Open Door’s prenatal program because he believes women should have the opportunity to have a large breadth of choices to plan pregnancies and birthing experiences. “I value the opportunity to work with midwives and the local home birth community… at this point I better go catch that baby!” Dr. Nicely and I met for this interview in the staff break room of the Open Door’s new Northcountry Prenatal Services facility at Mad River Community Hospital. He was happy to make time to share about his history as a family medicine practitioner in this community, though was sure to let me know that one of his patients was laboring in the hospital’s birthing center. Dr. Nicely returned about an hour later looking relaxed and happy, reporting that mother and new baby were in great health. He nearly picked up his sentence just where he’d left off.Learn More about NorthCountry Prenatal Services In December 2010, NorthCountry Prenatal Services (NPS) became Open Door’s newest clinic, relocating the services from the NorthCountry Clinic on 18th Street in Arcata to its own quarters in the Shaw Pavilion at MadRiver Community Hospital. “The number of patients we served doubled over the past several years. We were out of space. We now assist in the delivery of …Read More “I established a relationship with Open Door in 1991, after Dr. Scott Gavin left,” Nicely said. “Northcounty Prenatal Services