Acupuncturist goes from Wall Street to starting a free clinic in India

Today Tadavarthy indeed owns a small business, located in Suite 205 at 7110 S.W. Fir Loop in Tigard, and she’s stayed true to her goal of helping others

By Kristen Forbes

The Times, Dec 18, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

Anita Tadavarthy inserts acupuncture needles into a patient's foot in order to treat symptoms near his wrist.

Kristen Forbes / Times Newspapers

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TIGARD — The story behind Anita Tadavarthy’s pathway to acupuncture and Chinese medicine is as rich as the vibrant, bold colors on the walls of her Tigard clinic. A business and finance major who graduated from the University of Virginia, Tadavarthy initially worked for Morgan Stanley on Wall Street. She spent several years handling investments, mergers, acquisitions and buyouts for large corporations, such as Disney and Time Warner. This eventually led to a job working with the CFO of GAP in San Francisco, which later led to a job working in the finance division at Nike.

Tadavarthy, who says she has nothing but good things to say about all the companies she worked for, felt herself wanting to take a different path.

“I was supposed to go to business school. I had my recommendations. I had pretty much everything set up for me to go to business school. And I just couldn’t do it. I’m just not cut from that cloth.”

Instead, Tadavarthy decided to think outside the box.

“I was at a coffee shop one day and I started thinking: What would happen if I didn’t even think about having a degree in finance? If I didn’t think I’d had these jobs working on Wall Street, working for Nike? What do I want to do? And I thought to myself, I want to be able help people, and I want to own a small business.”

Today Tadavarthy indeed owns a small business, located in Suite 205 at 7110 S.W. Fir Loop in Tigard, and she’s stayed true to her goal of helping others. Seeking relief from pain, allergies, fatigue, hypertension and more, patients come to Metis Acupuncture Clinics to experience the healing power of acupuncture.

“The whole idea behind Chinese medicine is the idea of balance,” Tadavarthy says.

She begins her acupuncture sessions by asking her patients to describe the sensations they are experiencing. Knowing whether it’s a dull ache, sharp pain, burning sensation, numbness, etc., then identifying where the sensation is coming from influences everything from the number of needles used to where the needles are inserted on the body.

“When the patient tells me where, I diagnose which meridian was affected,” says Tadavarthy. The meridian gives me an idea of where you’re located on the highway. I tell people I’m located at the intersection of 1-5 and 217. I tell them I’m off exit 292 and just like that, they know where I am. When the patient tells me it’s near the wrist, it’s not quite at the wrist, it’s a little more proximal than the wrist and it’s located on the most medial part of the forearm, then I know which meridian. Then I find a balancing meridian to balance the affected meridian.”

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