ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 22, 1996 TAG: 9602220071
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Beth Macy
SOURCE: BETH MACY
Enough already.
And no, he's not related.
But he is Dr. Kevorkian - Dr. George Kevorkian Jr., to be precise. And he does put people to sleep in his oral-surgery office in Vinton.
He uses Fentanyl, intravenously, for the big stuff like removing multiple wisdom teeth. Laughing gas is one of his favorite tools, too.
But don't ask him to laugh about the similarity (in name only) to Michigan's Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the perennial newsmaker who leads the doctor-assisted suicide movement.
His office receives so many calls about his name that the person answering my inquiry, Sharon Wrenn, picked up my slant immediately. ``I know why you're calling, but go ahead and tell me. I want to hear you say it.''
By the time our local Dr. Kevorkian got to the phone, I felt like one of those people who laugh the hardest at their own worn-out jokes. (``Hey! Did you hear the one about the Vinton dentist named Dr. Kevorkian - he puts people to SLEEP!!! HAHAHA!'')
Looking back now on the way I begged, cajoled and groveled my way into an interview with Dr. George Kevorkian, I'm almost ashamed.
``Every time he's in the news, a TV station will try to get me [to be interviewed], but I always say no,'' Dr. George Kevorkian, 41, said. ``I mean, I think it's amusing, the name thing, but I have no comment about what he does....
``I mean, death is a very touchy subject.''
He did finally agree to a public coming-out - and not just to give you, gentle readers, something to talk about around the water cooler and beside the kitchen sink. He made me swear the theme of this column would be: He's heard it all before.
For instance, ``If I'm putting somebody to sleep for a wisdom tooth or something, they'll ask me, `Now I am gonna wake up, aren't I?' And I say, `Yes, I don't think having a tooth out is a terminal condition.'''
And, ``Patients all the time will ask me if I'm related, but usually because they're just trying to break the ice. After a while, it gets a little annoying to hear it over and over again.''
During a Kevorkian off-time - that is, when the famous Dr. K is not in the news - George Kevorkian gets teased three or four times a week. During peak Kevorkian time, such as when the famous doctor recently helped a patient die in front of a coroner's office, the local Dr. K has to endure four or five jokes a day.
As a result, our man with the drill reads everything he can get his hands on about the famous Dr. Kevorkian. ``Because I'm interested in what he's doing - and I know I'm going to hear about it the next day at work.''
For the record, Kevorkian is an Armenian name. Dr. George Kevorkian Jr. is from Richmond and attended college at the University of Virginia and the Medical College of Virginia.
He has been practicing oral surgery for 13 years - long before the other Dr. Kevorkian turned his name into a national controversy.
He recalls fondly the early days of his practice, when he could go to work, operate on a few mouths and not hear a single joke.
``It was nice,'' he said.
His father, the senior George Kevorkian, is also a Dr. Kevorkian, although he's a retired professor of business administration, not a medical doctor. ``My dad's actually from Detroit,'' his son confided. ``He likes to make jokes and talk about `crazy Uncle Jack.' He likes to pull people's legs.''
At the end of our interview, I asked him the names of his four children: Chris, Alex, Diana and Richard.
He beat me to this groaner of a punchline: ``The name Jack wasn't on our list.''
All of which reminds me of a Salem gynecologist whose last name sounds like the slang term for a certain venereal disease. Because she happens to be my doctor, she holds a certain power over me.
Meaning, I would not want to irritate her in any way by making tasteless jokes - particularly in the presence of a speculum - or calling her up for an interview.
Really, you can't make me do it.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Oral surgeon George Kevorkian of Vinton does put peopleby CNBto sleep sometimes - but not terminally. color CINDY
PINKSTON/Staff