Kirsten S. Paynter, MD, is a multiply-certified life, wellness, high-performance and leadership coach. She served a 20+ year academic medicine career at Mayo Clinic Arizona. She is dual board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) and Sports Medicine. She additionally served as Vice Chair of Education for the department and on the inaugural faculty of the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine where she created curriculum, oversaw a team teaching students musculoskeletal physical examination skills and mentored students, residents and fellows. During the COVID-19 pandemic she offered peer support and coaching to colleagues and those in her community.
Kirsten was the only woman in her department for the first nine years at Mayo Clinic and wrote a book chapter titled: The Single, Never Married, Unpartnered, Childless Woman Physician, in the book Burnout for Women Physicians (published in 2021). She hired her first coach in 2012-13 to address needs for personal and professional growth and through the coaching process realized that much of what she specifically and uniquely offered to her patients undergoing intensive rehabilitation after life-altering traumas, medical diagnoses or those with chronic conditions or chronic pain, was a coach approach to rehabilitation, as patients navigated through challenging changes, transitions and transformations.
In 2021, Kirsten began an international dating relationship, having met her now husband Daniel and his 3 children. She was empowered to take on her own next change (becoming wife and step-mother), transition (moving to Central Europe) and transformation (setting up the foundations of a new family and starting a new business as a life, wellness, high-performance and leadership coach).
As the founder and CEO of Everyday Flourishing, LLC, Kirsten partners with physicians to rediscover their personal values, reinvigorate their energy and well-being, redefine their purpose and calling, revisit their source of empowerment and leadership, and overcome the challenges and obstacles that stand in the way of being their best, living their dreams and creating a flourishing life every day.
