A Doctor’s Notes On Goodbye: Local Retiring Doctor Reflects On 34-Year Career

Dr. Suzanne Starke finished examining the last two patients of the day and said more goodbyes. While there were still a few hours’ worth of electronic medical records to complete, she was looking forward to going home to pack for a trip to Oregon the next morning.



It would be the first day of retirement from a 34-year career as an internal medicine specialist in Marietta, where she was senior physician in one of Cobb County’s oldest medical practices.

Her grandfather, Dr. William Mayes Gober, was one of the founding physicians of Kennestone Hospital in 1950. She served generations of Cobb County residents, including a number of local leaders, judges and heads of colleges and corporations.

“I did internal medicine from the get-go. I’d had a pretty good taste of pediatrics in med school, and that just was not for me,” Starke recalled.

After two years in Atlanta, she joined a small medical practice on Whitcher Street in Marietta near Kennestone Hospital, where she was born 68 year ago.

“My grandfather was a surgeon and obstetrician from Marietta. He trained at Johns Hopkins University and worked at Bellevue in New York, and then he was invited to come here in 1918. But he was originally from Marietta and was one of the founders of the original Kennestone Hospital.

“I used to sit on the hospital steps and wait for him to finish. I was old enough to sit still I guess, maybe I was six or seven. I remember him telling me to ‘sit still, and I’ll be back in a while.’ Before there was a hospital they had a little house, and they traveled to see the patients. That was a different time,” she said.

Starke completed her medical training at the Georgia College of Medicine in 1977. When she joined a Marietta internal medicine practice in 1984 to replace another physician who was retiring, she was one of only four female physicians in town.

She encountered a few patients who didn’t like the idea of a woman examining them.

“I would hear about it from the wives. Their husbands didn’t want a woman doctor,” she said.

She recalled one Friday night when she was still a hospital resident and helping an attending physician with his cases.

“He wanted me to do a history and physical on one of his patients who was coming in. When I walked into the room and introduced myself, his wife told me she did not want me touching her husband or taking care of him. I just told the other physician, ‘Sorry, I tried. You’re up.’ It was rare, but it did happen. Most of them were older and had their preconceived ideas,” she said. “It was a different mindset back then, but it didn’t bother me much. I had plenty to do.”

The most rewarding part of her medical career has been knowing her patients.

“Over the 30 years, you almost just grow up with them. I’ve been seeing three generations of families, the grandparents, their children and the grandchildren. I think that’s one of the beauties of internal medicine. When people ask what that is, I tell them it’s the equivalent of a pediatrician for the child, to take care of adults – cardiology, diabetes and high blood pressure. You do it all, to a degree. We have to know a lot about a lot, but know your limitations and when to call for help.”

ELECTRONIC DISTRACTIONS

Electronic medical records, while acknowledged as extremely helpful, was extremely time-consuming for her.

“It’s good to have access to all the patient’s information and see what’s already been done and what lab results are. Having that data is very valuable, but the computer in the room is extremely distracting. It’s gotten in the way of patient care. I’m not a typist, so I have to look at what I’m doing as well as look at the patient, and ask questions and get the answers. I think sometimes the patients resent this.”

For Dr. Starke, electronic medical records meant at least four hours of “homework” after she was finished seeing as many as 18 patients in a day. Her biggest challenge was feeling like she missed something in caring for a patient.

“What kept me awake some nights was when something was going bad with a patient and you knew it was bad. I’ve had patients die, and you just have to stop and take a moment, because you’ve known them for a long time and become friends. That’s always hard,” she said.

“But getting to know my patients, that was my total reward. I’ve been saying farewell for four months,” she joked.

She was guest of honor in two parties – one for the staff and a second for her patients.

“I’ve said a thousand goodbyes,” she said.

Starke walked out of the multi-story medical office building on a late October afternoon. She finished her last day on the job with mixed emotions – thankful for a rewarding career of helping her patients, but knowing she would miss them as she embarked on the journey called retirement.

“I’m flying to Oregon in the morning and I haven’t even started to pack,” she joked. “When I get back to Georgia, I’ll be working in my garden. I have a big yard, and this is my favorite time of year. I have my ‘playing in the dirt’ card and they know me at the nursery. They’ll probably get to know me even better now.”

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