A physician with well-heeled style
Kathy Flanagan’s sense of fashion — particularly feminine looks with high heels — was something she learned early.
Long before she set out on a career path in psychiatry, she had mastered ladylike dressing. While her classmates wore jeans and sneakers, Flanagan was perfectly accessorized in dresses and pumps.
When she was told she couldn’t wear heels at a parttime job at a Roy Rogers restaurant in high school, she quit.
“I was always teased for being too prissy — a girlie girl. I think my first steps ever were in heels,” Flanagan laughed.
She learned that from her mother and grandmother, who always dressed ladylike.
“There was a time I didn’t own a pair of jeans,” she said. “It’s a whole new world. When I’m not working, you pretty much find me in jeans — and stilettoes.”
Flanagan, who has had her private psychiatric practice for 27 years, said she always knew she wanted to become a medical doctor. But it was a Bible verse she read when she was 8 years old that spurred her interest in
mental health: “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by
your thoughts” — Proverbs 4:23. Flanagan attended the Michael DeBakey High School for Health Professions. She worked in the psychiatry unit at St. Joseph’s Hospital while still in high school; the experience taught her the importance of listening when treating patients.
“People need to be heard,” she said. “I felt good because I was listening to whatever issues patients were struggling with, and I could tell it was helping that day.”
After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with a pre-med/nutrition degree, she went on to get her doctorate at the McGovern Medical School (formerly the University of Texas Medical School at Houston) and complete her residency at Baylor College of Medicine in general adult psychiatry.
She worked as an assistant professor at Baylor before moving into private practice a year later.
At the time, there were few women in psychiatry and even fewer ethnic minorities. Flanagan found support in an organization of medical students and residents, which was a part of the National Medical Association, and also in the Houston Medical Forum, a network of African-American physicians.
Last week, she chaired the forum’s gala for the third consecutive year. The sold-out event raised some $200,000 for scholarships.
Flanagan also sits on the Texas Medical Board’s district review committee, the Menninger Clinic Foundation board and Career & Recovery Resources board, and she has served as a consultant for the NFL and WNBA. “Every day, I know I make a difference and offer people hope,” she said.