We were lucky to catch up with Steven Murray recently and have shared our conversation below.

Steven, appreciate you joining us today. We love heartwarming stories – do you have a heartwarming story from your career to share?

I was still a 2nd year acupuncture doctoral student when I was assigned to my first offsite internship. Rady Children’s Hospital. I was pretty active in my youth activities growing up which translated into a lot of babysitting jobs as well as camp counseling every summer break. I knew that I somehow wanted to incorporate pediatrics into my practice, but was still very unsure as to how to get kids to allow me to needle them. As most of us know, kids are not very fond of needles to begin with, but I was determined to try.

One patient that still stays in my thoughts from my Rady shift was a young person with down syndrome who was very passionate about swimming and was highly ranked on a competitive level. When they were admitted to the hospital, the doctors had found tumors on their kidneys as well as their brain stem and had to operate before the tumors spread. When they got out of surgery however, some of their worst fears had come true: half of their body had been paralyzed. When the doctors had removed the tumors from their brain stem it had interrupted the nerve pathway to the peripheral nervous system preventing any movement in the arm and leg.
Needless to say, the patient and their family were devastated. The patient’s one pride and joy had been swimming and they were being told that there was a possibility that they would never recover movement in that side of the body. “How am I supposed to swim?” they kept asking.

I was assigned to this case, along with another acupuncture student and our supervisor, in the in-patient department as well as a team of other specialists trained in various forms of healing modalities that would give care to this person throughout the week. We acupuncturists went to work vigorously, treating them twice a week, stimulating various points on their body, both left and right side to try and get the nervous system to communicate with the limbs again. Using different protocols of electrical stimulation acupuncture, we would thread needles in the scalp and then needles between the fingers and toes and hook wires up to the needles to stimulate the areas with electricity from scalp to extremity. I still remember this patient getting so excited the first time they were able to feel the electricity in their fingers and toes. One day I was coming into the clinic and heard my name being yelled down the hall. “Dr. Steven Dr. Steven! Look! I’m moving my leg all by myself!” and they tapped their toe in their wheelchair as they were being taken back to their room from one of their appointments.

It’s those moments, and those feelings that keep me in this profession. I still can’t believe some of the things that I have witnessed in my journey to becoming a Doctor of Acupuncture. What an honor it was to be a part of this team and bring natural healing methods into hospitals for true integration. What an honor it was to be a part of this young person’s journey to recovery.

It had been a few months of treatment and this patient’s appointments got fewer and fewer when I had realized I hadn’t seen them in my books that week. I asked what had happened and my supervisor had told me that they were discharged from in-patient care and were able to walk out on their own!

Steven, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine. My personal health goals took me down the path of natural medicine and into this profession. I find the capabilities of the human body fascinating and love that I get to teach my patients more natural ways to maintain a more optimal level of health. I work as a pain management specialist for UCSD Health as well as owning my private practice, Needle & Thrive, here in Golden Hill, San Diego. I specialize in Sports and Family medicine where I utilize tools such as acupuncture, acupressure, manual lymphatic drainage and other complimentary and alternative medicines to treat patients of all ages.
I pride myself in educating my patient about their own health and bodies so that they understand their specific needs for a more optimal, naturally pain free lifestyle.

Can you open up about how you managed the initial funding?

I was still in school when I quit my job and started working for myself. I was going to school full time to become a Doctor of Acupuncture, and for me, that meant starting from scratch. I still had to finish my undergraduate degree. I started as a massage therapist, getting a degree in applied science. I knew it would get me better at anatomy, and it was a gateway to building my own practice in the long run. I didn’t take out a loan for my business, nor did I have any initial capital. I got a massage license and started working for different doctors around town. I worked for doctors of acupuncture, chiropractors and alongside Naturopathic Doctors. I picked up as many contracts as I could with different modalities. I even worked for a pilates instructor at one point. I learned everything I could about running a clinic. What I liked in each as well as what I didn’t like in each clinic and how I could implement that into a practice of my own.
After about 2 years of running around town working in different clinics, I finally had enough of my own clientele to rent a more permanent room and start practicing how I wanted to. I was still doing massage and rented a room from a Naturopathic Doctor where I could practice all of the techniques, minus the acupuncture needling itself, that I was learning in school. I will say, that is where I realized that acupuncture theory did not necessarily need needles and that acupressure could be just as effective for pain management if not more-so sometimes.
To this day, most of my patients have been found through word of mouth. It is a much slower way of building a practice, but effective none the less!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Getting involved. My specialty is Sports and Family medicine, and while I was going to school I was working as a massage therapist. I focused my practice on sports medicine and joined a few gyms and yoga studios around town to get to know people.

Contact Info:

• Website: Needleandthrive.com
• Instagram: Needle.and.Thrive
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Dr-Steven-Murray-DACM-112758853459521

Image Credits
Photographer: Ashleigh Long Photography Adult Model: Cortland Anderson III Infant Model: Indie Funkhouser, Michelle Funkhouser (parent)