Meet Kristen
Kristen Knight, PA
Physician Assistant
As most parents can relate, my identity was completely hijacked by motherhood 5 years ago. I now have 3 incredible, hilarious, smart, gigantic strawberry-blonde little girls. They are the light of my life. My co-parent and wonderful husband, Jordan, works tirelessly alongside me to help raise them. Jordan and I actually met in the emergency room doing a lumbar puncture together, and got engaged a year later in the same room- but that’s a story for another day :)
Before kids, I used to enjoy playing soccer, hiking, traveling, skiing, reading. Since kids, I spend my free time cleaning up messes, giving out snacks, vacuuming, doing a 2 hour bedtime routine, giving out more snacks, changing diapers, and forgetting to text people back. But jokes aside, I am truly honored to work at Paradigm Family Health, an organization that is so supportive to working-parents and has incredible working-Mom role models who I admire and am privileged to work alongside.
In 2022, I had the good fortune of meeting Dr. Benson at a preschooler’s birthday party. While our daughters were jumping in ball pits and inhaling birthday cake, I had the opportunity to learn about the special practice she has created at Paradigm, and the rest is history!
I went to PA school at Baylor College of Medicine and have since spent the majority of my professional career in the Emergency Room of a level 1 trauma center, where I have truly seen it all. The trenches of the ER built me into a strong clinician, but I have always felt the pull to spend more time (too much time, by ER standards!) with each individual patient. The deeper I get into my career, the more I value the gift of time. Time to have meaningful conversations with patients, time to develop long-term relationships, time to individualize each patient's treatment options. The direct primary care model at Paradigm allows for this gift of time to truly become a reality, and I am so thankful for it.
I grew up in a household full of medical professionals, so it seems my future was written in the stars. My mother was a labor and delivery nurse and my father a bone-marrow transplant oncologist. I have two younger sisters whom I adore - another physician assistant and a nurse practitioner! We grew up living where my Dad’s career took us (Boston - Seattle - DFW) and have been in TX since 1994. I went to undergrad in Williamsburg, VA and graduated from The College of William & Mary with a biology degree and and wide open future. I elected to spend the next year volunteering in the Dominican Republic, exposing me to medical care in a 3rd world country. Wow. That formative year ignited my passion for medical mission work, especially in Hispanic countries, and I have since returned on several additional mission trips to the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Guatemala. I love the opportunity to speak Spanish, the family-oriented communities, and the culture of thankfulness despite having so little.
"It's truly a family. A medical family."
