MEET
Dr. Michelle.
Lifestyle, Integrative, & Mind-Body Medicine Practitioner and Integrative Wellness & Culinary Medicine Maven
Born and raised in the Shenango Valley, Dr. Thompson has developed a Free Healthy Living Series, where she lectures and provides experiential opportunities to anyone in the community seeking knowledge in integrative modalities. Her programs are eligible to receive credit toward insurance deductible by showing the participant has "taken a healthy step." She has taken her unique medicine approach out of the office to share in efforts to reach more people, designing programs with no financial, physical, age, or gender barriers. By collaborating with fellow practitioners, community members have experienced yoga with live acoustic guitar, aromatherapy, sound therapy with crystal singing bowls, flutes, gongs, didgeridoo, art therapy, reiki, tai chi, qigong, energy modalities, dancing mindfulness, breath work, guided imagery, kids yoga, meditation, nutrition, and lifestyle modalities all free of charge.
She has been active in teaching the whole food plant based diet to people in her community, creating cooking programs with a local chef and dietician, for eating to reverse disease. By promoting "Doctors in the Kitchen-Food is Medicine," an approved continuing medical education event, she hopes her peers will implement the changes they learn into the way they practice medicine and will become models of health and healing for their patients.
Currently, Dr. Thompson is employed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and has a full-time integrative family medicine practice, seeing infants through the end of life using a natural approach to health care. Her specialty is reversing disease through diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes while empowering her patients to take charge of their health and work as a team with their physician. There are healing powers of proper nutrition in almost all disease processes, and she believes that eating for health can be pleasurable if we eat in a way that serves our body.
Recognition and experience
The American Board of Integrative Medicine (ABOIM) recognizes Dr. Thompson as an exemplary advocate of its goal of helping patients by treating the root causes of health problems and not the symptoms. Read the American Board of Physician Specialties article on Dr. Thompson and how patients benefit from integrative medicine, here.
Dream it. build it.
Triple-board certified physician: Integrative, Lifestyle and Osteopathic Family Medicine
Michelle is one of only 54 Fellows in the world, which is a prestigious honor granted by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine
Medical Director UPMC Lifestyle Medicine Institute
Board member of the National Wellness Institute and the Board of Medicine
Specializes in treating the root cause of health problems, not just the symptoms
Vice Chief of Staff UPMC Horizon & Jameson
Trained in Mind-Body Medicine
Graduate of Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine
Former director of Great Lakes Institute of Technology massage therapy program, 1998
2003 Completed family medicine residency at UPMC Mercy Hospital Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Former trustee for Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Association
Committee member for Complimentary and Integrative Medicine
Studied with the Neuromuscular Therapy Center in St. Petersburg, Florida
Active clinical teacher for medical students, interns, and residents
Associate medical professor for LECOM and PCOM, both osteopathic medical schools in Pennsylvania
Faculty for University of Pittsburgh Medical School
Former Chair of Medicine UPMC Horizon
Cultivator of life changing wellness retreats for relaxation and disease reversal
Wanderlust “Speakeasy” wellness ambassador