Meet Dr. Kirsten Thompson in Brentwood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Kirsten Thompson.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My path to becoming a physician was almost 30 years in the making and required the life-shifting moment of running to safety as the World Trade towers fell on September 11th, 2001.

As a child, I dreamed of being a doctor and was obsessed with all things medical, including my bloody sutures from a head injury which I saved in a drawer for years. But after college at Cornell University, I was seduced by the lure of Wall Street and accepted a job offer from JPMorgan as a financial analyst. My first day of work was September 11th, 2001. That morning, planes crashed into the World Trade Towers two blocks from where I sat. The towers crumbled and I ran for my life. As I fled, I looked over and saw a man running next to me, clutching his briefcase. In a flash, I saw the future emptiness if I pursued a career in finance instead of following my dream.

For the next few months, I continued to work at JP Morgan but at night began volunteering at medical programs – as an advocate for rape victims, with AIDS patients and assisting the medically ill elderly.

I soon quit JP Morgan and began premedical classes at Columbia University while working in the Psychiatry and Cardiology departments. Working in medicine, I felt alive like never before. After medical school, I moved to Los Angeles and began a surgery residency at USC.

I was drawn to the adrenalin-pumping, life-saving nature of the surgery, but soon found myself repeatedly holding a dying patient’s hand, as opposed to racing to the next trauma victim’s surgery. With patients lying alone on a surgical table, the transition from life to death seemed profound and worthy of my time. Each patient’s internal world was intriguing, whether it was dealing with homelessness, cancer, violence, or life in general. The 26-year-old drug-addicted gang member, paralyzed from a gunshot wound and living in the hospital (though impressively still able to cross the street to get crack!) fascinated me more than the aberrations of anatomy in my anesthetized surgical patients. After two years of surgical residency training, I transferred from USC to UCLA where I completed a residency in psychiatry.

From moments of joy to profound pain, each individual has a unique and powerful story. I am reminded that life as a human is not easy, even with extreme wealth and fame. And on the opposite end of societally-supported notions of success, in my work with formerly incarcerated gang-members, I am able to witness the profound resilience of the human spirit despite recurrent abuse and trauma.

Medication and effective therapy can be transformative for patients and I am privileged to be caring for patients in my role as their psychiatrist. After experience in several psychiatric treatment modalities (including a residential treatment center, the UCLA Cancer Center, Homeboy Industries), I now volunteer as a teaching faculty member in the UCLA Women’s Life Center, where we see women with psychiatric conditions associated with hormonal challenges and pregnancy.

I spend a majority of my time seeing adults in my private practice, for therapy and medication management. As a psychiatrist, I am captivated by the broad range of human emotional experience and I can’t imagine a more fascinating career.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being a psychiatrist comes with the constant challenge of dealing with patients who are depressed, anxious, volatile and irritable – all symptoms of the illnesses I am meant to treat. So, rejecting ‘difficult’ patients would be antithetical to my goal of helping them achieve greater mental health.

I have developed relationships with excellent therapists and psychiatrists and we cross-refer patients. As I don’t accept insurance, my practice did not open with a constant flow of patients, but patients come to me through word-of-mouth referrals and my internet presence.

Please tell us about Kirsten Thompson, M.D.
My practice focuses on achieving mental and physical health – and life goals! I aim to get patients feeling well and developing healthy relationships with food, exercise and people (including themselves).

I practice both medication management and therapy, in addition to discussing lifestyle changes and alternative medicines that have been shown to be effective in research studies.

I work with adults with all psychiatric diagnoses, excluding severe substance use disorders. Additionally, I subspecialize in reproductive psychiatry (seeing patients who need medication before, during or after pregnancy or menopause) and psychiatric oncology (seeing patients with mental health needs during or after cancer diagnosis and treatment). I am known for being effective and compassionate.

While many psychiatrists are a bit eccentric, my patients find me both knowledgeable and relatable. Rather than a paternalistic approach to medicine, I inform and collaborate with patients, aiming to not just achieve stable mental health but to heal, develop life-long healthy behaviors and to have the best life they can have. Patients are left empowered with options and hope.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Helping my dad medically stabilize an elderly couple that had been in an accident on the freeway. They were trapped upside down in their car, which had flipped. This was before cell phones, and we had been driving behind them, so we were the first responders. My dad was a volunteer EMT in his spare time, so he knew what to do and I was his second set of hands. Despite being a young kid, for the first time, my assistance was important for those few minutes. I felt the adrenalin and fulfillment of helping someone else in a critical time in their life.

Contact Info:

• Address: 11980 San Vicente Blvd., Suite 711
  Los Angeles, CA 90049
• Website: www.thompsonpsychiatry.com
• Phone: 310-853-3169
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drthompsonmd/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Kirsten-Thompson-MD-1918306511738535/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KThompsonMD
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/kirsten-thompson-md-los-angeles-2
• Other: https://plus.google.com/+KirstenThompsonMD

Image Credit:
Danika Singfield

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