Future orthopedic surgeon, MD/MBA Aiming for olympic fencing [Show summary]

You think you have a lot to do? Our guest today is an MD/MBA student who happens to be training to join the U.S. Olympic fencing team and compete this summer in Tokyo. How does she do it all? Let's find out.

Interview with Kamali Thompson, MD/MBA student and sabre fencer for Team USA [Show notes]

Our guest today is Kamali Thompson, a fourth-year MD/MBA student at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey. Kamali attended Temple University as an undergrad, and graduated with honors after majoring in biology and minoring in psych. She has been fencing since 2006 when she was in high school. Kamali is a member of the 2019 national team completing research in the sports medicine division in the department of orthopedic surgery at NYU, and starting to become an orthopedic sports medicine surgeon. She's also a 2018, 2019 author for Doximity, and Kamali is currently training for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team.

Can you tell us a little bit about your background outside of medicine and where you grew up? How and when did you get involved in fencing, and medicine for that matter?

I'm from a town in New Jersey called Teaneck, New Jersey. It's 20-ish minutes away from New York City. I grew up like a regular kid. I was interested in ballet, and I danced for a really long time from the age of three. I have a younger brother, and when I was in eighth grade I was on my way to go into the normal high school in our town, Teaneck High School. And I was at our Teaneck High School open house and my mother was with me, and I was actually dragging her to the dance room because I was so excited about getting to high school and dancing and being on the dance team and all that.

We got to the cafeteria and there was a fencing demonstration going on. And my mom, she stuck her head in. She's like, "Ooh, what's this? What's going on?" And I was saying, "Mom, who cares? Come on, let's go." And she spoke to the coach, the high school coach, and the high school coach told her about the pros, saying how fencing is really unique, and how if I was able to get involved with a team, it could really help me get a college scholarship. And that coming from a dance background, I would have the basics, like footwork and bouts and all that stuff. So my mom was sold immediately, and she told me that I was going to be fencing in the fall with the high school team.

When I started fencing on the high school team, I did that for two years, and then after two years I really started to like it. I wanted to get better. And for fencing, what you have to do is you have to go to a fencing club where you get a coach, and you take private lessons and you fence several days a week. My coach recommended that I go to a club in New York City called the Peter Westbrook Foundation, and that is a club that was created by a six-time Olympian, Peter Westbrook, who wanted to help minority kids in the New York City area get involved with fencing. Fencing is very expensive, so it's not something that a lot of inner city kids are looking to do. When you start off at The Peter Westbrook Foundation, you go on the Saturday morning program where you learn the basics of fencing, and they have different ages and different skill levels. So I started off in the advanced class, and my mom said, "Well,