ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9701310023
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
A trip to John Robinson's office might be just a routine visit to the dentist if, well, Robinson wasn't such a trip himself.
He isn't the average dental doc in a white lab coat. Robinson's regular uniform consists of climbing pants and a casual shirt. He has a bread maker in the office kitchen, and the aromas prove he uses it. He plays skiing videos and music for patients while he works on their teeth and gums, or entertains them by humming on a harmonica or playing the piano.
But along with a home-like decor, Robinson's Roanoke office in historic Old Southwest houses some of the latest technology available to dentists, a computer that allows his to draw tooth overlays and make them with precision to match the original teeth.
Robinson latest toy is a CEREC 1 unit made by Siemens Electric Ltd. It is a combination computer-assisted design and manufacturing gizmo that allows him to create ceramic inserts to fill cavities.
The Roanoke native has rock-climbed in West Virginia, British Columbia and Ecuador. He skis. He bikes. He mixes pleasure with more serious pursuits every chance he gets.
Literature that John Robinson gives his patients recounts his family's long involvement in dentistry - a grandfather set up practice in 1907. It explains that Robinson "loves his profession, but [that] he also has a wide range of outside interests," including Kayaking, sailing and running. His wife Marybeth and three sons also are listed.
Robinson, 38, graduated from Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke and Roanoke College in Salem. He rode a bike across the United States before going to dental school at the Medical College of Virginia.
He joined the dental practice of Robinson & Clark, run by his father, Fuller Robinson, and his sister, Lynn Robinson, and brother-in-law, Jeff Clark.
After three years with the family, Robinson moved to an office on Brambleton Avenue where he practiced alone for two more years, but still depending on his former partners to provide backup when he takes time off for his varied interests.
All of those five years, Robinson said he thought about the kind of place where he wanted to practice, and then he spent three years designing his office, now on Highland Avenue.
He was the general contractor on the remodeling project, which includes lots of windows and decking.
A grandmother's quilt, African violets and a redwood tree seedling mingle with the latest German-made dental equipment.
* * *
With the CEREC, after a tooth's bad area is drilled away, Robinson holds the machine's camera lens over the area and photographs the tooth shape. Next, using a computer mouse, he draws the addition proposed for the tooth.
Once the design is completed, the machine automatically mills the glass ceramic material into the required shape.
The new onlay insert is glued in place and contoured with a drill.
The finished product looks like tooth rather than a silver filling.
The high-tech tooth repair hasn't replaced any of the regular dental procedures, Robinson said. He still does traditional fillings and makes crowns. The insert is another option for patients.
"I don't have to drill away the tooth to a nub," he said. "So many times, you get this tooth with a huge hole and a little shell of tooth on the outside. If I put on a crown, I have to drill the shell away, I have to alter the shape of the tooth and the area where it meets the gumline."
The insert allows a dentist to preserve the tooth's original shape and color and follow the gumline, which makes the tooth easier to clean.
Also, the entire process can be completed in one office visit because there is no need to take impressions of the tooth for dental lab to use in making a replacement tooth or crown.
Financially, Robinson said, he "breaks even" using the insert method for tooth restoration. The process costs the patient between $500 and $700 a tooth, in the range of the cost for a crown.
He first encountered the machine at the Medical College of Virginia, where he works once a week as a clinical instructor. Robinson said he played with the equipment enough to learn its operation.
"But, I was dying to get one here," he said.
He jumped when he spotted an ad for a unit that a retiring dentist was selling, meaning he bought the $60,000 technology for less than half the price.
He has learned to maintain the equipment himself.
Only 200 CEREC 1 units have been sold since the machine was introduced in the U.S. in 1990, said Steve Sutton of Charlotte, N.C., CEREC's product manager for U.S. markets.
A second generation, CEREC 2 with faster software and more sophisticated capabilities, was introduced in the U.S. in October and about 40 units have been sold.
Worldwide, the CEREC product is a decade old. Nearly 4,000 CEREC machines have been sold and used in about 3 million tooth restorations, Sutton said.
Computer-assisted tooth work isn't Robinson's only indulgence in high-technology. He's also using a special microabrasion drill that uses compressed air and fine powder. In many cases, the drill allows work to be done without an anesthetic, he said.
Robinson's passion for learning recently won him the designation as a fellow of the Academy of General Dentistry. A fellow has to complete 500 continuing education hours over 10 years and pass an exam. His father also is a fellow in the academy.
Also, Robinson has kept up his pursuits outside the office. He and his wife have three sons, Adam, Ian and Taylor. The two oldest each spend an afternoon at the office every week, and in good weather son and dad walk home.
"It's our bonding time," he said.
Robinson also does mission work through the Baptist Foreign Mission Board. In Jamaica, he pulled bad teeth. In Eastern Russia, he was a guest lecturer at a medical school and said he was fascinated by how sloppily the workers in Eastern Russia did everything "from dentistry to fixing a street."
In February, Robinson is scheduled to travel to Vietnam for three weeks to lecture at the Vietnam Medical Institute north of Hanoi. It's a new adventure, which is part of the appeal.
Korena Anderson, who manages the dental office, said she "knew right off" that Robinson's office would be a "wonderful" place to work when she interviewed for the job two-and-a-half years ago.
Each morning, Anderson said, Robinson enters the office with the promise: "This will be a good day."
"And it is," Anderson said.
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL STAFF. 1. Dentist John Robinson's office hasby CNBa home-like decor with the exception of an old dental work station
he turned into a planter. 2. Working with a small camera in the
mouth of patient Bill Ramey (above), dentist John Robinson uses a
video screen in the background to check a tooth. 3. When not
drilling and filling, Robinson is apt to play a tune on his piano
(above, left) to entertain his patients. color.