About

Dr. Christian Thurstone is Director of Service of Behavioral Health Services at Denver Health and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Denver, where he conducts research on youth substance use and addiction and has served as director of medical training for the university’s addiction psychiatry fellowship program. He is one of about four dozen physicians in the United States who are board-certified in general, child and adolescent and addictions psychiatry. In October, 2012, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy honored his work by naming him an Advocate for Action for his efforts nationwide to reduce drug use and its consequences.

Dr. Thurstone has served as medical director of one of Colorado’s largest youth substance-treatment programs and as a past president of the Colorado Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Society. He completed medical training at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and UCD. In 2010, he completed five years of mentored research training through the National Institute on Drug Abuse/American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry K12 Research Program in Substance Abuse.

Teens and young adults in Colorado and throughout metro Chicago call him “Dr. T,” the name under which he wrote a weekly advice column for nearly a decade for The Tribune Co.-owned student newspaper, The Mash. In Denver, he and therapists working with his supervision deliver mental healthcare and addiction treatment to students on the campuses of several public high schools. “Dr. T” also serves as a team physician for the National Football League.

In June 2012, the United States Congress awarded him another title: U.S. Army Major — and approved his promotion to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in November 2017. As an Army Reserve officer, Dr. Thurstone serves at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the country’s largest military hospital outside the continental United States, and as a director of medical training for the Combat Stress Unit of the 807th Medical Command. He is honored to treat American service members who need mental healthcare and to train Army Mental Health Specialists.

Dr. Thurstone is a fluent Spanish speaker and enjoys working with many of his young patients and their families in his second language. He also likes to talk tennis. He plays his favorite sport competitively and was ranked among the top 10 players in the United States Tennis Association’s Men’s 40s Division. When he’s not in the office, you stand a good chance of finding him on a tennis court — or at home, where he enjoys spending time with his wife, Christine Tatum, and their two children.

Christine Tatum is a veteran journalist whose communications and market intel firm, Media Salad, Inc., helps companies and nonprofit organizations win business and stay ahead of their competitors. Her professional stops include the Chicago Tribune, The Denver Post, the (Arlington Heights, Ill.) Daily Herald and the (Greensboro, N.C.) News & Record. Her work also has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, and New York Times. She was elected to serve as 2006-07 national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, one of the United States’ largest and oldest journalism advocacy organizations, and has been honored to teach concepts in responsible journalism around the world at the invitation of the U.S. State Department.

Ms. Tatum’s work has been honored by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Colorado chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National American Arab Journalists Association.

Ms. Tatum frequently collaborates with her husband to produce communications designed to educate and inform the public about substance abuse and addiction. They are the co-authors of Clearing the Haze: Helping Families Face Teen Addiction (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). She is a regular contributor to this website.