In this episode of Roots of Healing, Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa speaks with Dr. Michelle Thompson, an osteopathic family physician, integrative and lifestyle medicine leader, and founder of Wholehearted Medicine. Together, they explore what happens when we stop seeing ourselves as the healer and begin to recognize that every patient is their own best healer.

Dr. Thompson shares her unconventional journey from stepping away from medical school to become the director of a massage therapy school, where she immersed herself in reflexology, aromatherapy, neuromuscular therapy, sound healing, and art therapy then returning to osteopathic training with a completely different lens on what true healing could be.

From being labeled “the integrative one” in a 100,000 employee health system to designing lifestyle medicine residency curricula and launching mind-body group visits, Dr. Thompson has quietly been reshaping what care can look and feel like for both patients and clinicians. She also opens up about grief, losing her grandmother, Ayurvedic support during a silent retreat, and how unprocessed stress can live in the body as chronic illness, burnout, and mysterious symptoms.

Whether you’re a clinician on the edge of burnout, a patient seeking trauma-informed, whole-person care, or a healer who needs permission to put yourself back into the center of your own life, this conversation is an invitation to return to self-love, nervous system healing, and the simple, radical act of listening to your own body.

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• “You are your own best healer” – shifting power back to the patient
• Leaving medical school, leading a massage therapy school, and returning with a new integrative lens
• Learning reflexology, aromatherapy, neuromuscular therapy, sound therapy, and art therapy as foundations of future practice
• Turning a “traditional” family medicine practice into an integrative, lifestyle-focused clinic
• Why Dr. Thompson stopped saying “alternative and complementary” and insists on integrative and evidence-based
• Building lifestyle medicine into residency curricula across multiple programs at UPMC
• The six pillars of lifestyle medicine as a starting point for every patient visit
• Asking: “What’s going really well, and what are you struggling with?” as a doorway to root-cause discovery
• Grief, losing her grandmother, and how Ayurveda helped her see stress, digestion, and sympathetic overdrive differently
• “You cannot live being chased by a tiger your entire life” – the cost of chronic sympathetic activation
• Mind-body skills, James Gordon, and the Center for Mind-Body Medicine influence on her clinical work
• Group medical visits as a powerful vehicle for healing, connection, and reclaiming time in conventional systems
• How massage, sound therapy, yoga, and breathwork became essential, not optional, in her own self-care
• Physician well-being, trauma in training, and why self-care must sit at the center of healthcare
• Teaching medical students and residents to honor their bodies, stories, and inner wisdom
• Viewing self-care as an act of service: when we care for ourselves, we care better for others

00:00 — “I tell every patient, you are your own best healer.”

00:21 — Welcome to Roots of Healing

01:32 — Introducing Dr. Michelle Thompson and her role at UPMC and beyond

03:17 — Leaving medical school, leading a massage therapy school, and discovering integrative...