Victoria (Tori) Van Kirk, MD

Victoria (Tori) Van Kirk, MD 

Tori Van Kirk grew up between Mississauga, Ontario and Minneapolis, Minnesota before she traded 9-month winters for the always-sunny city of Los Angeles to pursue her undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Southern California. She is the first person in her family to pursue a career in medicine, and her motivation to do so stemmed from a deep desire to support patients who live with diagnoses which impact how they see and experience the world and, in turn, the way the world perceives them.

After losing a loved one because law enforcement misinterpreted his postictal state as a threat to their own safety, she became passionate about serving individuals like him both clinically and through advocacy work. To date, she has helped raise over $20,000 to improve police training in crisis de-escalation and successfully lobbied for legislation which provides legal support to families who lost loved ones to police homicide, resulting in a new provincial law in Ontario that brought visibility to this overlooked issue and created a critical feedback loop. Currently, she is working to advance an amendment to the Police Services Act to mandate de-escalation and crisis-response training in Canada and hopes to continue this type of work throughout her career, both in Canada and the United States. 

While at Keck School of Medicine, she discovered that the aspects of medicine she loved most were the relationships she built with patients and the opportunity to care for them through some of life's most vulnerable moments. These experiences inspired her to pursue a career in neurology, where she hopes to combine longitudinal patient care with community engagement, caregiver education, and advocacy. She is especially interested in developing programs that improve access to neurologic care and empower patients and families living with chronic neurologic disease.

After seven years in Los Angeles, Victoria is grateful to call the city home and is thrilled to continue her training at the West LA VA and UCLA's Neurology program. She is excited to learn from a community that shares her commitment to compassionate care, service, and health equity while contributing to initiatives that extend beyond the walls of the hospital.