Dr. Thatcher earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He completed medical school at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, and psychiatry residency at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Then he completed a fellowship in forensic psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. He is triple board certified in psychiatry, forensic psychiatry, and addiction medicine, and a fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He worked for 10 years as a certified medical review officer for Valley Lab.
He has worked for Valley Behavioral Health since 2009 and has served an executive role as Chief Medical Officer, and Vice President of Medical Services for the last 12 years, with executive oversight of the medical services, lab services, pharmacy, and data analytics department.
He is an adjunct clinical faculty at the University of Utah, and St. Mark’s Family Practice Residency, guest lecturer at Weber University, and serves on the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at the University of Utah Office of Admissions Interview Sub-Committee. He is president of the Utah Society of Addiction Medicine and on the Nursing Advisory Board for Weber University.
He serves as a mission health advisor for the Salt Lake City West Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a first-call psychiatrist for the Africa South and Central America mission areas (71 missions), and is a member of the church’s Psychiatry Committee, US Psychiatry Committee, Special Clearance Committee, and Pre-Review Committee for the mission department.
He has taught mental health, substance abuse, and psychopharmacology for CIT and AP&P officers in Salt Lake and Tooele counties for 8 years and taught monthly substance abuse lectures for the CATS program in the Salt Lake County and Oxbow jails for 3 years from 2010 to 2013.
