Debora Green - Early Life and Medical Training

Early Life and Medical Training

Green was born February 28, 1951, the second of two daughters to Joan and Bob Jones of Havana, Illinois. She showed early intellectual promise, and is reported to have taught herself to read and write before she was three years old. Green participated in a number of school activities at the two high schools she attended and was a National Merit Scholar and co-valedictorian of her high school class. Those who knew her at the time later described her as " right in" and someone who was "going to be successful".

Green attended the University of Illinois from the fall of 1969, where she took a major in chemistry. Though she had intended to pursue chemical engineering as a career, she opted to attend medical school after graduating in 1972, believing the market was flooded with engineers. She attended the University of Kansas School of Medicine from 1972 to her graduation in 1975. Green chose emergency medicine as her initial specialty and undertook a residency in the Truman Medical Center Emergency Room after her graduation from medical school.

Throughout her undergraduate and medical school attendance, she dated Duane M. J. Green, an engineer. The couple married while she was studying at the University of Kansas. The couple lived together in Independence, Missouri while Debora finished her residency, but by 1978 they had separated and then divorced. Debora cited basic incompatibility as the reason for the divorce—"e had absolutely no common interests", she was later quoted as saying—but the divorce was friendly.

During the period the Greens were separated, Debora met Michael Farrar, a student in his twenties completing his last year of medical school. Farrar was struck by Green's intelligence and vitality, though he was embarrassed by her habit of explosively losing her temper at minor slights. In contrast, Green felt that Farrar was a stable, dependable presence. The couple were married on May 26, 1979. When Farrar was accepted for an internal medicine residency at the University of Cincinnati, the couple moved to Ohio. Green went into practice at Jewish Hospital as an emergency physician, but grew dissatisfied and eventually switched specialties. She began a second residency in internal medicine, joining Farrar's program.