‘Don’t Let People Determine Your Destiny’

Dr. Noble Thompson, a recently retired neuroradiologist from Bryn Mawr Hospital, remembers a time when someone told him that he would never be hired because of the color of his skin. 

That was long ago, and Thompson proved himself with a long and successful career. But those, like other wounds, never go away, and they contributed to his recent retirement project, his book, Never Give Up: My Struggle To Become A Physician.

These days, in addition to pursuits of art and horse riding, Thompson spends some of his time mentoring young kids through his church First Presbyterian in Philadelphia, where he is signing copies of his book on Saturday.  He tells them, “Don’t let people determine your destiny.”

Funny, but it was someone who at least helped determine his destiny as a doctor—it was his grandmother, who told him as a young child that he would be a doctor. He said his grandmother “revered education and thought that being a doctor was the greatest thing you can be.” Although when he was young he wanted to be a musician, she planted the seed that would eventually lead him to study medicine. 

Upon his retirement six years ago from Bryn Mawr Hospital, where he worked since 1979, Thompson began writing about his strained relationship with his then recently-deceased father.

The “unresolved issues” with his father didn’t go away when he died, so Thompson put pen to paper in an effort to better understand their relationship, or lack thereof. The practice allowed him to think about his father in a different way, he said, and formed the basis of his book.

On his path to becoming a neuroradiologist, Thompson said he was met with obstacle after obstacle in his early career. After graduating from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, he said he had doors slammed in his face from New York to Michigan to California.

It took him a year but got a break working in a Los Angeles community hospital where he imaged brains and spines. But Thompson said he knew he would have to work at a university hospital in order to develop the credentials he wanted.

He was invited back to Jefferson, where he completed his residency and fellowship before being hired by Bryn Mawr Hospital to run its CT scans. Thompson was among the very first in the country to become a Board Certified Neuroradiologist.

Thompson said he hopes that through his book and his weekly mentoring he can “open the doors of possibilities to kids.”