[1][2] Thompson started working as an operating room and private duty nurse for a few years.

She was the first superintendent to tackle global war problems, including the procurement and assignment of nurses.

[1] In November 1919, Thompson received the Distinguished Service Medal for "her accuracy, good judgement...untiring devotion to duty" and for her "splendid management of the Army Nurse Corps during the emergency".

Instead, she was appointed as assistant superintendent, which gave her the added responsibility for all Army nurses in the Philippines, Siberia and Tianjin, China.

[2] Thompson spent her later years in San Francisco with a houseman in a home overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.

[2][3] The women officers' quarters at Letterman Hospital was named Thompson Hall in her honor.