Life has thrown longtime Queen Anne chiropractor Dr. Deborah Starr a curveball. Surgery for a benign brain tumor last summer has left her unable to practice at a business she's run for 23 years on West Mercer Street, she said.
It's a balance issue, explained the Queen Anne resident, who was only the second female chiropractor in Seattle.
But not being able to return to a job she loves came as a surprise, Starr said. "I kept hoping I'd go back." For that matter, Starr still hopes to return to giving chiropractic treatments someday, she said.
In the meantime, Starr sold the business to longtime chiropractor Dr. Richard Waling, who started last week. It took some doing to find the right replacement. "I interviewed over 10 chiropractors who were interested in the practice," she said.
But Starr was picky. "I wasn't just going to sell to anybody," she said. Some candidates were obviously a bad fit, including one woman who was interested in treating a high volume of patients by spending only three to four minutes with them. By contrast, Starr used to spend 10 to 15 minutes, she said.
Starr, whose father and brother are both medical doctors, studied pre-med in college and qualified as a medical technician. But she wanted to work for a year in a hospital before tackling medical school, Starr said.
She ended up working as a lab tech in a New Jersey hospital, where Starr realized the world of medicine wasn't for her. "I found I didn't like sick people because I had too much empathy," she grimaced.
So she moved to Oregon, where she used her microbiology and chemistry knowledge to work as a corporate microbiologist for a potato company, Starr remembers.
But she wasn't happy in the job because all it involved was testing French fries, so she moved to Atlanta, Ga., Starr said. And it was there that she went almost by chance to a seminar about chiropractic care.
Starr said she realized that's what she wanted to do. "I knew within 15 minutes," she said, adding that she went to a chiropractic school in that state for a year.
However, she missed her boyfriend and moved back to Portland, where she finished up the last three years of her chiropractic degree at Western State Chiropractic College, Starr said.
Following graduation, she moved to Seattle in 1984 and opened a solo practice because most of her graduating class planned to stay in Portland, the divorced mother of twin boys said.
Much has changed during those years. When she graduated, 90 percent of her fellow students were men, Starr said. These days, 60 percent of chiropractic students are women, and she has a theory about why that happened. "I think it's a nurturing profession."
Another change is the way medical doctors view chiropractors. When she first started out, doctors looked askance at chiropractors, and many chiropractors felt the same way about doctors, Starr said.
However, that attitude has largely disappeared now, she believes. Starr has a good reason. "I have medical doctors refer [patients] to me," the chiropractor said.
On the flipside, Starr said she refers patients to doctors if she doesn't think chiropractic care will help. Starr also stressed that she has been part of a team that included a massage therapist and a Ph.D.-level psychologist at her business.
She was also one of the first Enviro-Stars in Seattle because she recycled chemicals used to develop X-rays so that the silver was recovered.
Starr has worked with stroke patients, patients suffering from migraine headaches and patients with speech and hearing impairments. "And they improved with chiropractic," she said. "I mean, I've seen miracles."
Assuming she can't return to chiropractic care, Starr is considering doing research and being an advocate for people who have suffered brain injuries, she said. "I think there's a real need, [and] I know how to work the system."
In the meantime, Starr walks five miles a day and is feeling better every day, she said. Starr estimates that she treated something like 3,500 patients (including this reporter) in the years she was a chiropractor.
But while Starr remains remarkably upbeat about her life, there were a few moments of somber reflection when she was interviewed for this story. "I'm really sad about leaving," Starr said. "I miss my patients a lot."
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