Dr Michelle Thompson

Physician

Dr. Thompson triple board certified in lifestyle, integrative, and osteopathic family medicine incorporating culinary medicine and mind-body skills into her patient care along with teaching medical students, interns, residents, and attendings at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center where she has been employed since 2006. She is the medical director for the Lifestyle Medicine Institute at UPMC where she is leading the initiative to place self care in the center of patient care and employee health. She is changing the the way medical education and residency is taught placing lifestyle medicine at the center of their training overseeing the lifestyle medicine curriculum for family and internal medicine in 9 training programs. She has served as Chair of Medicine and is currently Vice Chief of Staff for UPMC Horizon and Jameson. Dr Thompson created a “Doctors in the Kitchen-Food as Medicine and Physician Wellness” program offering CME for her colleagues to learn about self-care and lifestyle medicine. As an avid educator and faculty for Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, she has taken traditional journal clubs for the residents into the teaching kitchen collaborating with all specialties. She designed lifestyle medicine grand rounds offered virtually system wide which improved access for the 8 family medicine residency programs which now offers a lifestyle medicine residency track offered at UPMC.

Dr. Thompson has transformed the way health care is offered in her primary care practice and community offering free classes in nutrition, whole food plant based teaching kitchens, mindfulness workshops, yoga, tai chi, qigong, meditation, sound therapy, art therapy, forest bathing, shop with a doc, aromatherapy, dancing mindfulness, Ayurveda, mind-body medicine, and many other integrative tools empowering people to take control of their health. She has received many awards and grants for her community work where she brought the Dr Yum Project to 3 counties and 2 states to teach nutrition to children and their families in 10 head start programs. Her pop up teaching kitchen she designed moves through the community teaching churches, schools, businesses, first responders, and doctors offices the daily dozen and pillars of lifestyle medicine.

As a Champion for UPMC Physician Thrive, she is a fierce advocate for physician wellness and stopping burnout. Dr Thompson created full-day programs for physicians and nurses to learn tools for resilience and self care. Dr Thompson was featured in the New York Times for her work in physician burnout, the workshops she has created, and mind-body skills groups for physicians. She was featured in the recent documentary Going Om discussing the health benefits of sound therapy as a tool in healing.

She is an advocate for system change and has been a pioneer in changing the way health care is delivered.