{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/hd7np1xx2x/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. Lonnie Robinson and Robin Robinson"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine.  Disclaimer:  The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker’s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2022-05-10 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["video"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Arkansas","family doctors","rural family medicine","physicians"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians (corporate name)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine. \u0026nbsp;Disclaimer: \u0026nbsp;The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker\u0026rsquo;s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/196/792/small/Robinson_LonnieandRobin%285-10-2022%29.mp4_1689094752.jpg?1689094753","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/99097/file/196792","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Robinson__Lonnie_and_Robin_(5-10-2022).mp4"]},"duration":6990.2833,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/196/792/small/Robinson_LonnieandRobin%285-10-2022%29.mp4_1689094752.jpg?1689094753","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/99097/file/196792/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/99097/file/196792/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/196/792/original/Robinson__Lonnie_and_Robin_%285-10-2022%29.mp4?1689094739","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":6990.2833,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/99097/file/196792","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/99097/file/196792/transcript/45030","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Transcript of Dr. Lonnie Robinson and Robin Robinson interview [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/99097/file/196792/transcript/45030/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Sam Taggart: Good evening, my name is Sam Taggart.  We are in the office of Dr. Lonnie and Robin Robinson of Mountain Home for an interview this evening and the girls will come walking through at sometime here in the next little while and their names are Blair and Trinity.  You also have a son...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nOh yeah; we’ve got several others.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Several other children; ok...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMary, Claire, and Caroline...Stone is my son and we raised our nephew, Andrew; so we have six that we claim.  Trinity is our niece.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You’ve got multiple kids.... (Laughing)....Ok...  \n\nThe purpose of this interview is to document your life, actually y’alls life, and to look at it from the standpoint of the things that have had an impact on you in your life and got you to the point where you are right now and to talk about medicine; your life in family medicine.     \n\nThe best place to start is at the beginning: When and where were you born? Who delivered you? Talk about the circumstances of your birth...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSure; I was born on July 25, 1971 in Stuttgart, Arkansas.  I was delivered by a doctor whose last name was John; I just remember my mom saying his name... “Dr. John.”   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: White? \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nHis last name was John; I don’t know.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Oh ok....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI think Dr. Northcutt was practicing at that time; I don’t remember who all was in that group, but it was part of that group that Northcutt was in there at Stuttgart.  Northcutt delivered at least one or two...one or both of my brothers; but, yeah I was delivered....the third of three boys.  I was 9lbs 10oz; so, not a small baby.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What are your brother’s names?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nGary and Greg.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How old are they?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMy oldest brother, Gary, is deceased; he was the oldest and five years older than me.  He passed away in 2008 in a motorcycle accident.  He was a wild life officer and lived in Hazen In Prairie County near DeVall’s Bluff.  My other brother, Greg, is still living and lives in Hazen.  He is 11-months older than me and so, I was the last of three. I always laugh and joke about the circumstances of my birth because I was born after two vasectomies.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Really..?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMy dad had a total of three vasectomies; so.... (Laughing)....     \n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What does your other brother do who is still alive; Greg?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nGreg is disabled, but he farmed mostly for a living.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What did your mom and dad...what kind of work did they do?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMy dad, most of my childhood, managed an LP Gas company for about 26 years there in DeVall’s Bluff where I grew up.  The year I went to college, he got an opportunity to do something else; Hank Brown from Benton, who owns the furniture stores, came and approached my dad and asked him if he would guide hunters for him.  So, my dad spent the next 20 or so years guiding hunters and taking care of hunting property and that kind of thing.  My mother also transitioned into being kind of a cook and caretaker....  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What did she do before that?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nShe worked in a bank in DeVall’s Bluff and quit shortly after it was robbed at gunpoint. (Laughing).... Then, she ran kind of a home daycare and babysat kids for a lot of my youth until she and dad got that opportunity when I went off to college.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How big was DeVall’s’ Bluff when you were growing up?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nIt was about 700 people.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What is it now?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh, it’s probably smaller than that.  It was a Class-A school; I had 35 in my graduating class.  But, the school got consolidated in approximately 2008, 2010, or somewhere in that ball park.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: With who..?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nHalf went to Hazen and half went to DesArc; so, the school is no longer functional there.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That same kind of thing happened to Cotton Plant.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh huh; also the scrappers...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah and the elementary kids went to Brinkley and the high school kids went to Augusta. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you have a big extended family?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWe had cousins that lived there in DeVall’s Bluff.  My dad had a sister that lived nearby; so, I had three cousins that were there.  We had...my mom was from Biscoe and she had several brothers and sisters; so, I had several cousins that lived in the Biscoe area as well.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Do you have any significant memories of your young childhood?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nNo...\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Of before you went to school?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nOh, yeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What do you remember?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nOne thing I will say, some of my best friends still are from DeVall’s Bluff and growing up there, you always thought, “I’m going to blow this popsicle stand and move on.”  But as I was growing up, the more I kind of harkened back, if you will, to my friends and family familiar; but...\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Do you have much exchange with them now?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYes, two of my best friends and a couple of other friends in that group; we still get together on a regular basis, specifically around hunting.  That’s probably the biggest memory I have growing up; hunting with my dad or hunting with my brothers.  Playing basketball; that was kind of the center point of our school.  You know, we didn’t have football; we lost football when I was a 7th grader and then, it came back in the 9th grade and we lost it again.  They said it was too small a school to support a football team and so, basketball was really kind of the main sport.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: In your elementary school days, where there any people: grandparents, your parents, teachers, preachers, or anybody who had a significant impact on you and said, “Hey, you need to knuckle down and do this” or “you can do this”...that kind of thing?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI don’t think there was any one teacher that necessarily kind of inspired me to pursue academics; I think they all were encouraging.  My first and second grade teachers, you know, had put me into gifted and talented kind of classes, accelerated classes, and that kind of thing; but, I don’t know that there was any one person that did that.  I think...after I got into high school, my high school basketball coach was a big influence on me.  He was sort-of like a second father; Coach Jim Smith.  He also encouraged me in general about life and about pursuing academics.  Probably one the most profound conversations that I had with him did not go the way I expected; because we were very successful, the high school basketball team my junior year, there were three guys in the class ahead of me that were all state and very good. They all went on to play college basketball; so my senior year I think there was some interest on my part in proving that I was at least as good as them.... so, we go through the year and I had a great \n\nyear; I was all state that year and got recruited by several colleges in Arkansas and some outside of Arkansas.  I sat down with him kind of having the talk, “What do you think I should do?” and I basically asked him, “I’ve got offers from so-and-so and so-and-so; what do you think, I should do?” He said, “Well, are you going to go into the NBA?” and as arrogant as o was at 17, I said, “No.” (Laughing)... He said, “Do you need basketball to pay for your college?” and I said, “No” because I had already gotten some academic scholarships and he said, “I think you ought to go on to college and kind of let basketball be a fun high school memory.”  That was some of the best advice that I probably ever got and unexpectedly so....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Sure….yeah…\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nBecause part of the pride within a 17 year-old young man, I wanted to beat my chest and say, “I’m as good as them” and you know after I thought about it,  I thought, “I think he’s right” and I went on to college at Fayetteville with two of my good friends; it proved to be a good choice.\n\n      \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...\n\nWhen you were in elementary school and then in junior high school, were there any things that just stuck out that you were really interested in? Obviously, you enjoyed sports...you enjoyed hunting...being with your family; that kind of thing. \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWell academically, I liked science; it was my favorite subject...but outside of those two things, I don’t know if I can really identify anything....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you write?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI was....I like to write; I sure do...I sure did.  You know, we had some poetry things that we did when I was in elementary and things like that; but uh....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you keep any of that?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI do actually have some of that; looking back on it, it is kind of corny...but, it is fun to think about.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I tell people that I had boxes of things that I did when I was a young kid; I just...I don’t know whatever happened to them, but a lot of people do that.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMy wife is very nostalgic, so she likes to keep everything; she kind of gets upset with me because I purge things sometimes. (Laughing).... \n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Now, let’s go back to you...what is your full name?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Robin Bobbitt-Robinson:   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: And where are you from?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Jonesboro.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Born and raised in Jonesboro?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Uh huh, Flat Plains.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What kind of work did your family do?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: My dad was a saw-miller; he was uneducated and quit school in the third grade.  He had to do that because his dad was ill and he had to farm.  My dad was also illiterate, which was unusual for a kid growing up in the ‘70s or ‘80s, and my mom worked factory jobs.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What were your mom’s and dad’s names?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Carol and Tilburn Bobbitt ...my dad was from Jonesboro and my mother was from Maynard, Arkansas.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: One of the previous Presidents of the Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians was a guy by the name of Maynard from the 1950s and he was from Maynard.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Wow...really?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWow...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, I don’t remember his....but, I’ll get that for you sometime...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That’s fascinating.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, you grew up in Jonesboro and went to large big city schools.....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Uh, I went to Valley View, which is a bigger school now, but it was small then and then, I went to ASU and finished school there.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Do you mind me asking how old you are?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I’m 50; we were both born in ‘71.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I’m asking you the same questions; were there any people in your life when you were a little kid who had a big impact on you and pushed you in one direction or another: parents, grandparents....?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah, I think my mom; she was just kind of a day-dreamer and given our circumstances, money was tight, she always said that we could do \n\nanything that we wanted to do.  She just kind of kept that open and I believed her; so, I was kind of the first one to go to college in my family.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How many brothers and sisters do you have and where do you stand in the group?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I have three brothers, one is deceased as well, and I’m second in line; so, there are three boys and myself.  None of them finished college; so even to this day, I was kind of a novelty.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What do they do?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: My oldest brother doesn’t....he is disabled.  My youngest brother who is living, the other one passed, is a director of a food service, or food company, and lives in northwest Arkansas.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You have a child wanting you.....\n\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Pardon.....“I know, I told them don’t come in, but I heard that soft rap on the door.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Was your family religious when you were a child?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson\n\nMy mom was kind of the religious leader in our family.  My dad grew up the son of an Assembly of God preacher and was force fed a little bit, so he kind of rebelled against that.  There’s more to the story, but mom took us to church and dad attended occasionally.  Religion was a big part of our life; yeah.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Mike Young from Prescott told me, when I asked him that question...he said that when he was a kid, he had a drug problem; he said every time the church door was open, he got drug to church ....\n\n(Both laughing)...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson\n\nThat’s good; yeah, my mom was gentle with that...I think part of their thing was the understanding where my dad had been with religion; so, they took a much more...I don’t know if passive is the right word...a much less heavy handed approach with it; but certainly, it was a big part of our life growing up.  My dad was off and doing other things on Sunday, but my mom was in church every Sunday and encouraged us to do so.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Robin, was your family religious when you were a child?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Not at all; it’s interesting, because I think about this man now who is deceased, because I looked him up probably five years ago... but there was this pastor that retired from Illinois and he came and lived not far from us in my neighborhood; on day he visited with us and asked if any of us would like to go to church and I said, “I would.”  So from what I recall from like 10 years old until 12 years old, I went with him every Sunday. I never missed a Sunday with he and his wife; they were much older and they had a profound impact on me...I think now as a Christian...that kind of commitment to see that I was on church every Sunday; so yeah, it was something that I kind of did on my own and then later in life, my parents...\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What were their names?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Herbert Wydell; I do not remember the woman’s name.  But, I did look them up and he had passed; he was in his ‘90s and I wish that I had contacted him a few years back. But, it was neat.\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you have any teachers when you were in elementary school or junior high school, those younger years, who had an impact on you; preachers, business people, grandparents....any of those kinds of folks? \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I didn’t have grandparents; mine passed all when I was younger.  My mother was the next to the youngest of nine; so, my grandparents were gone before I was 5 years old.  My dad’s mother died before I was born, so I only knew his dad who died when I was 7; so, I never had grandparents.  But yeah, teachers for sure that encouraged me; an art teacher specifically, a music teacher that discovered gifts that maybe we didn’t know we had...my brothers and I had some musical gifts.  My dad sang and played in a country and western band; he played sax and was lead singer, so we always had musical instruments around my house and things like that.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So you guys were doing your pre-school and elementary times during the ‘70s...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Uh huh..\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh huh..\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: And was around 9-10 when the ‘80s rolled around...after Vietnam quieted down, it was a fairly calm time.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah...yeah...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: It was a good childhood.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI mean, I don’t....I remember the talk about nuclear arms and stuff like that...more that was probably in the ‘80s; but you know, I don’t recall there being a lot of...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did politics play a big role in your families?\n\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson:: I wouldn’t say so. I remember my mom and my dad both voted differently; so, they would say, “Let’s just stay at home.” \n\n(Laughing)....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: We cancel each other out.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Right; my mom was more of a Democrat kind of thing and my dad a Republican.  So it was interesting and I kind of got their spin on things growing up; I think it was that way until my dad passed away many years ago.  But, it was interesting and that was my first education on that; so, yeah....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Looking back at that time, can you see any of the opinions, ideas, or thoughts that you hold closely? Whether you tell anybody about it or not...that came from that time?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That’s an interesting question and I think so; yes....what about you?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUm....I don’t know; I probably need to think on that a little bit more.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That’s interesting, because I do think your parents when you are young have a profound impact on your world-of-view and your thinking.  We certainly hope so as parents that we have that kind of influence on our children.  What about you?”\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Me; oh yeah, absolutely...I’ll tell you more about me later.  But, oh absolutely; my mother was the ultimate care-giver.  She was the youngest girl of eight siblings on her side of the family and on the father’s side of the family, she was also the youngest girl who stayed.  So, her job in life was to take care of the old people and that’s what she did; that’s how I ended up....   \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Wow.....she modeled that for you.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That’s how I ended up in medicine.  She also, once a week, would go to the WPA Library that we had in Augusta and get a stack of books and she’d go sit and read to the old people.  She’d read for herself and read for them and one of the highlights of my childhood was when I got my first library card.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Wow..\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThat’s awesome; that reminds me of Benny Carson’s mom.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah, I think of Ben Carson when I listen to you.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: My father was...he had a lot of faults...not that he had faults, he ran a farm....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: We all do...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: But, he was a philosopher.....he was a sharecropper, rice farmer sharecropper, from August and he was the most wonderful storyteller that I ever heard.  He’d start laughing and get everybody else....      \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson:: It’s a lost art; isn’t it...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Oh yes; it certainly is...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSpeaking of that, I do think one of the most profound influences on me kind of going towards medicine was my dad; just from a standpoint of hard working guy.  I think both us, our parents were hard workers.  But, he...I didn’t realize this until later in life...everything always seemed like we were, not struggling, but we were not....we were of modest means.  But I didn’t realize this, he had worked his way up as the branch manager and he actually owned the LP Gas Company, half of it before it was sold, and he was kind of in a good position after that.  They sold to a national franchise and he kind of stayed on, but he had a nest egg, if you will.  But then, he got sick; he developed Cushing’s Disease and I think it took him......\n\n    \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How old was he when he died?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: He developed diabetes in his 30’s, but I do remember....late 30s early 40s was kind of that time frame where he was not great and it took them a while to figure all that out. He was seeing an endocrinologist at Little Rock Diagnostic Clinic; Glover.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Lawson Glover...\n\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah and I remember....hindsight, you’ll appreciate this, him doing urine collections and the brown jug being in the fridge...”What is that?”...”That’s dad’s pee”...”ok”....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Don’t mess with it...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nRight.... “Don’t drink it”....he just; it affected him emotionally and he was frustrated.  Basically at that point in time with the way insurance worked, it covered some; but it didn’t cover all of it, and so it basically just ate up everything they had.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Was your dad a big man?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nHe was at that time, yeah.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, this was probably type-II?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, he was type-II diabetic and then, they discovered that he had a pituitary adenoma; ACTH secreting pituitary adenoma.  His cortisol levels were crazy high, his blood pressure was up, sugar was crazy  ...900s and stuff like that...and he was on insulin; they were doing all this stuff trying to figure it out and eventually, they found out that he had the adenoma.  He had the transsphenoidal resection of the pituitary tumor, which fixed a lot of that or at least rectified it, but it had kind of eaten up a lot of their savings.  So a lot of my influence was: 1.) He was involved with a lot of medical entanglements and I was interested in science.  I mean, the desire to help and to kind of help them....but also this, I would like to be able to make a comfortable living; but more than anything else, to see his frustration with...some of his providers were really good; Glover was a great guy and he loved Dr. Glover, but he also had his first heart attack at 47.  He had v-tach and one day, before he knew he had v-tach, he was driving down 6-30 and started blacking out at the Baptist exit.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How fortuitous...  \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\n(Laughing)....He just pulled off, went into the ER, and was in v-tach.  He wound up getting a defibrillator and some other things done; but part of that was an EP study and one of the electro-physiologists there...her name was Eleanor Kennedy... he had a special name for her that was not pleasant.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Oh boy...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThis is one of the things that I really do remember; they took him down for an EP study and he had no idea what he was going to do or what was going to happen...I don’t; to this day, I don’t think he got an informed consent for what was about to happen.  Basically, they took him down and put him in all these dysrhythmias and were trying drugs to see which one would work and then they started shocking him; he had no idea that was going down.  He came back up to his room and he was pissed; my dad had a temper and at that point, he was fit to be tied.  She came into the room to talk to him and he wouldn’t talk to her; he just refused to talk to her.  He said that she started saying some things and he wasn’t talking and so, she said, “Well, I can see that you’re upset” and she turned, and left, and ordered a psychiatric consult; because clearly the problem was with him and not with her.\n\n     \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Right....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI just remember that and I just, you know, think a lot of....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How old were you when all of this was going on?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI was, at that point, probably a sophomore in college; but that just had a big impact on me because, you know, he had medical problems all through my youth and coming up to college...but that particular experience, I was like, “Yeah, that is awful” and it really did kind of influence kind of the way I view bedside manner and the way I explain things to people....her negative example.  He then switched to Dr. Greer, who he loved. \n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: She was known to do that...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThat was her kind of personality.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, that was her personality; she was not good about that.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThe psych consult was salt in the wound, because again it was saying, “Clearly, there is something wrong with you; there is nothing wrong with me.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, this is all going on while you were in high school?\n\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYep; high school and then into college....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Talk a little bit about your high school experience; obviously you played basketball and you were good and made all-state.  Talk about your teachers and your subject matter; if you’re like most kids in a small school, you’ve taken all the courses that you can take by the time you’ve got to your second semester as a senior.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Uh huh....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, it was somewhat limited; I had several teachers that were influential that I spent a lot of time with....my English teacher in junior high, Ms. Adney.  Jim Smith also taught trigonometry...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: He’s the coach?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nHe was the coach, yeah; he also taught trigonometry and so, I had a lot of contact with him. There was a lady named Ms. Gray who has passed away from breast cancer; she was from Hazen, but she was our science teacher...so, a lot of those people were influential.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Robin, what about your high school experience; people who had an impact on you or crises that had an impact like with his father?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I think high school was kind of an escape for me; our home was...you know, it could’ve been probably better.  Dad worked all the time and I think my parents did the best that they could, but I think I really blossomed in high school...so, it was kind of an escape. I loved it; I loved school.  I loved the social component; I love community and kind of locked arms with some kids that had really intentional parents.  I think that’s how I made it to college; I just kind of did what they did and what they signed up for, I signed up for.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Have you kept up with those kids?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Oh sure, uh huh...so, that’s kind of...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: They still live around Jonesboro?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Jonesboro, one; but it’s interesting because a lot of them didn’t finish college and I did.  So yeah, it was a good high school experience.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Was you getting an education...not just was education important...but YOU getting an education important to your parents?  \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I think it was and you know, my oldest brother went to one year of college...he is the one that passed away.  He graduated high school, went to UCA for a semester, and had about a .50 grade point average; he had a real good time for that semester.... (Laughing)...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: (Laughing)...Uh huh.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: Again, he was on...I don’t think he had a car. I think he had to catch a ride to school with friends.  He was on Pell grants and other things and you know, fairly well bonded ....then, came on home and went in to the Navy; he did four years in the Navy.  But you know, I think academically, he did ok.  My brother who was 11-months older than me, school was not his thing.  I think my parents really encouraged me because it was obvious that I had the ability academically and had done real well with that; so, they strongly encourage me in that even though they had never been to college.  They were fully committed, “whatever it take takes; if you’re ready, we’ll make sure you go.”\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What informed your decision on where you would go?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nAfter I got past basketball.... (Laughing)...I still remember getting on the phone, there was this ivy-league school called Swarthmore...Swarthmore was recruiting me and calling a fair amount; my dad got on the phone with the basketball coach one day and he was talking to us...dad said, “What kind of scholarships are you offering my son?” and he said, “Well sir, we are Ivy League and Ivy League does not give athletic scholarships; we give financial aid packages.”  Dad said, “Well, how much does it cost to go to Swarthmore for a year?” Even at that age, I think it was $20,000-30,000 and my dad said, “Well, let me tell ya coach, that better be one hell of a financial aid; because that is not in our price range.”  The guy was like.....I was 6’5 and their tallest guy was 6’3...and he was like, “you can start your freshman year or something like that” and it was all... from an ego standpoint, it was exciting; but once that died down, I kind of got over that.  I certainly didn’t ...I was kind of a homebody and didn’t really want to go to Pennsylvania anyway or even out of the state.  One of my best friends, still to this day, moved....he actually lived near DeVall’s Bluff, but attended a private school in Stuttgart and then in 8th grade, he transitioned into the public school at DeVall’s Bluff....you know, he was athletic, a smart kid, very intelligent, good grades, hard worker, and so, he came in and I was kind of the guy in my class at that point with good grades, the athlete....here comes this other dude and kind of wrecked my show.  (Laughing)  We were kind of in the beginning a little bit of rivals and eventually became really good friends; we played basketball and everything else together.  We’d hunt and fish together.  We eventually had another guy that was our age come for...I knew him from elementary; his parents divorced and one was in DeVall’s Bluff and the other was in Warren; so, he split time and it was kind of a bad household.  He would go back and forth, DeVall’s’ Bluff to Warren, and in our junior year, he ended up in DeVall’s Bluff again and all three of us kind of hung together.  Even to this day, we’re still real good friends; but to answer your question, they were going to Fayetteville and after I decided that I wasn’t going to Arkansas College, which is Lion now, to play basketball and not going out of state to Swarthmore...they influence me heavily to go to Fayetteville and that’s where I wound up going.\n\n           \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Were you aware that Mike Moody had the opportunity to go to Lion College and play basketball?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: Really..?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nNo...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: He was ...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWhere was he from?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: He was from Salem, Arkansas; but he had the opportunity to go and play basketball at Lion College.  He went there for a year and then went to Arkansas State.\n\nRobin, tell me about your story of what informed your decision...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: For ASU?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...    \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Well, it was just...I played basketball, volleyball, played golf my senior year...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Were you any good?\n\n\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah, I was pretty good; but you know, it was Valley View.  I mean, I was all-state, but...I did qualify for state my senior year of golf; there were only two girls that played, everybody else was guys and so, it worked out.  But just ASU because everybody kind of went there; again, I’m coming from a family that, you know, my parents never....I remember asking my dad ...before I graduated, I remember he was welding and I went to see him; I was trying to talk to him and was telling him about something that was going on at school and he pulled off his welder’s mask and I said, “Dad, am I the first Bobbitt to ever graduate from college?” and he pulled it off and looked at me and said, “ Sug, I believe that you are the first Bobbitt to ever graduate  from high school.”  It just...I thought, “Oh my gosh, I hope he’s joking; I really hope he’s joking” but, I don’t know.  I don’t know if he was, because again, he was brilliant.  He was just brilliant in a million ways and looking back now, I’m 50 and have raised several children...I think he was dyslexic, which contributed to his inability to read because he was not trained properly.  But, he compensated in a number of ways because he kind of had an engineer mind and built a million things.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMy dad was the same way.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWe’ve looked back on that; he could fix anything and he could do anything...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah..\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So in both of your cases...if you were born in ’71 and there were a group of kids being born in that timeframe, that means that...were either one of your parents in WWII, Korea, or Vietnam?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nMine were not; my dad had a heart murmur and didn’t qualify.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: My dad had vision problems and wore glasses.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nSo, they likely might’ve both been; but for health reasons... \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, tell me about college; did you have a good time in college?\n\n\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: I enjoyed college; so, the three of us were going to Fayetteville...my high school business and typing teacher from Carlisle, Elsie Rayborn, her oldest son was at Fayetteville and her youngest son was a contemporary of ours and he was going to Fayetteville...so when we said that we were going to Fayetteville, she said...she’s got this, I don’t know where she is from but it must be Mississippi; but she said, “Kids, kids, you’ve got to go see got see my boys at the Sigma Nu House.”\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Is that how it happened?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: So yeah, she introduced us to her son and I knew Steven; but we went up, met some of the Sigma Nus, went through rush, and we all three went Sigma Nu.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, you had a good time your first year....for at least a year or two...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: We had a good time; right...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you do well in school?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI did; that’s the other thing, I had gotten a governor scholarship, an academic scholarship from Fayetteville, I had a couple of other scholarships, and I worked loading crop dusters in Stuttgart between my senior year in high school and my first year in college, which made a good little pile of money. If it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have been able to go; but my dad was very relieved that I had everything paid for and had money left over.  I got paid my first year; I had money....even some of the scholarship money was left over.  We went through rush and wound up going Sigma Nu; had a good time and my scholarships paid for it....so, it was very...I’m very thankful for that opportunity to go and not having to.....my parents, first of all, didn’t have it...but, not having to take out a bunch of loans; so, it was very good. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How was your school financed?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUm, I went to school on a Pell grant and I’m very thankful for that.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I also had a Pell grant; yeah...\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: When you walked out of DeVall’s’ Bluff or Valley View and headed off to college, did you have an idea of what you really wanted to do with your life? \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nGood question for me; I will let you answer in a minute, but the interesting part of that is....I always was interested in medicine and right before I left, I had to have a physical form filled out... I had a knot on my hand, which was a ganglion cyst....I didn’t know what it was and it was kind of freaking me out; so, I went to my family doctor, Dr. Arthur Camp in Hazen, and had that checked out.  I had him do my physical form and at the end of the visit, I said, “Hey, I’m thinking about going to medical school.  My grades are.... “I really like science; what do you think about that?” and he said, “I wouldn’t do it.”  (Laughing)....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Wow....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nAnd quite honestly, he talked me out of it; I remember now in hindsight what he showed me was probably some ICD code and he’s like, “Look, you have a ganglion cyst; I used to just write that in the chart and all that stuff and the insurance would pay for the visit.  Now, I have to tell  what kind it is and he started flipping through this book and showing me all this stuff and I thought, “What does that have to do with taking care of people?”  He was very frustrated by it; hindsight, I look back on that and he was very negative about practicing medicine...there are probably frustrations that are rightly so...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: You caught him on a bad day...\n\n   \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThere are plenty today, but...\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How old a man was he at that time?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI’m just...he had kids my age, one a little bit older and one a little younger than me; so, he was probably...I’m just guessing...in his late 40s.  But, he later committed suicide.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Oh no....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThere were a lot of things going on; I think his wife had a chronic illness and he may have had one, but I think he struggled with depression a lot.  It was... basically, it took me from going pre-med all the way to “I’m not going to do that” and so, I was like...”what can I do with my interest in science?”  Math was fine, but it wasn’t like my favorite thing; so I thought, “well, maybe engineering”.....so, I started out in electrical engineering and that lasted one semester; part of it was, I hated math.  (Laughing)...”I looked at the catalog and went.... “Cal-I, Cal-II, a different set of equations; I’m not down with that” and also I looked around in the electrical engineering classes and thought, “Do I want to work with these people the rest of my life?” \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Right....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSo, I changed after a semester to pre-med and finished out that way.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: One of my good friends started out...he wound up being an OBGYN....he said that when he went to Fayetteville; this was in the ‘60s...’64 or ’65...he said that he ended up in the pre-med line because it was shorter than the  engineering line.\n\n(Laughing)....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yes....yes....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Do the names Dr. Pupsta from ...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nPupsta?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah, Pupsta from.....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nClarendon; yeah...\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Or Dr. Stone Herd from Cherry Valley; do those names mean much to you?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nNo, but I know Dr. Pupsta’s name and I think Eric and his family....my good friend who lived at Roe; he went to St. John’s Christian School in Stuttgart for the first seven grades and then came to DeVall’s Bluff, which was my good friend...he and his family had seen Dr. Pupsta in Clarendon several times; but I have never met Dr. Pupsta.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You just knew the names....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI just knew the name.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How about your schooling; you went to ASU....talk about how you ended up there and did you have any idea what you wanted to do when you went there?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Well my first semester, I started out pre-law; but then I somehow mistakenly got into a junior class were there was just a seminar and a paper due at the end, so I changed my major after that semester, which I regret because law still interested me;.  So, I went a communications route because I worked 40 hours a week and I thought that was a whole lot easier than a marketing degree; I could go journalism and get an assistant PR in advertising, which is the same work, and so, that’s what I did.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That was a pretty big deal at ASU at that time...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Very good; it was absolutely. It was excellent; communication was second to Syracuse in the Nation at that time.....very good.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I don’t know if you knew this or not, but they started out with a school...the basis for all that was a printing school.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I didn’t know that.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: They taught people to work printing presses and to run printing presses; that was back in the ‘40s and ‘50s and that was one of their first steps out of the agricultural business.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI didn’t know.....huh...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Was in the printing business and that’s where their communications and…\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That’s fascinating; I knew it was an excellent communications program, but I never knew the origins.  \n\nThat’s neat.\n\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: By the time I graduated from high school, they were already had an active program with communications and they had...not the radio station, that wasn’t developed yet at that point...but they were in the process.....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Where did you go to school?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: ASU; I went to the same place… \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Did you?  You’re an Indian though, not a Red Wolf; same here.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yes, that was me; I was an Indian at that time.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Absolutely...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Talk a little bit more about the subjects that you were involved in.  You said that you didn’t go into law, but you wish you had....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Well, public relations....advertising...all those classes; marketing, I minored in marketing.  I did the sorority thing; President and loved it.  I worked 40 hours and so, you know, I had to manage all that.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nShe never sits still.\n\n Robin Bobbitt-Robinson: I was surprised that I graduated; yeah, it was good.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What kind of work did you do?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Well, I went into marketing; my first job was marketing assistant at Bachelor Regional....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh.....\n\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Wasn’t it?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSt. Barnard’s...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah; of course, St. Barnard’s...I befriended a pharmacist there and he suggested that I try my hand at pharmaceutical sales; so, I got in with Bayer Pharmaceuticals  and then moved onto Pfizer, where I met Lonnie, because I was calling on the residency that was there...yeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: The reason I’m smiling is, not at your story, but my wife and I met...she was a drug rep....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: You’re kidding me...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: She was a drug rep for Merck...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Is that true?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yes, she was a pharmacist. She became an ophthalmologist and is retired from that now...but she was....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That’s fascinating...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nGollie...she was a pharmacist?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: She was a drug rep and then went to medical school?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: She had been a pharmacist for 12 years…She knew I was divorced.  I had gotten divorced and she came into my office one day and she said, “I’m throwing a dinner party. Would you come as a blind date for my good friend, Debbie?”  I looked at her and said, “Annette, I’d just as soon go out with you.” And I said, “Are you dating anybody?” and she lied and said, “No.” And she said, “Are you dating anybody?” and I lied and said, “No.”\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That’s great!\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAnd so we started dating and ultimately got married. \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: And then, she went to med school? That’s a great story\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, she went to medical school the year after we got married.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: So, you were already in medicine....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I had been practicing....that’s where I met her; we had worked on committees together in the hospital and all this stuff when she was a pharmacist, but no hanky panky....we were  just friends.  \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That’s fascinating...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nShe’s a highly educated lady.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: She is...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: She is no doubt and more than anything else right now in her life at 75 years old, she’s a grandma and she loves that as much as.....I think she loves that as much as anything she’s ever done.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Oh, I love that....isn’t that wonderful?”....Oh, that’s wonderful...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: She got accepted to the University Ophthalmology Program when she was 45....46...or something like that...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That’s amazing..\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Johnny Shock specifically said, “I want her in this program.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nHow long did she practice?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: 20 years; she practiced until...she and I retired just about the same time; so, she practiced for about 20 years..  \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nWhich doesn’t seem very long these days; the older I get...I’m like, “20 years is not that long...” \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: But, she had already had 15 years practice in pharmaceuticals before she did that.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nYeah....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: This is not about me and so, I’ll edit that out....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nThat’s fine...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So when you went off to college, were there courses and things that you just really, really enjoyed?  Things that you went, “Oh wow; that is so interesting....” \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWell, it wasn’t college Algebra or Cal I; I can tell you that.\n\n(All laughing)...\n\nMy major was microbiology and they don’t have that anymore at Fayetteville; they did away with it.  So, you can’t get a micro degree anymore.  You know, the first thing that I’d say is that I looked around as a freshman...just in our pledge class at Sigma Nu, there were 18 of 38 guys that started out pre-med...I looked around and so-and-so, his dad, is a state legislator and they know the Clinton’s real well...this guy’s dad is a doctor...and this guy’s....and I go, “I’m from DeVall’s Bluff.”   Part of that was a big motivator for me, because I’ve got four years of scholarships and I can’t make a mistake; I’ve got to get it done.  That one semester of electrical engineering, I was a little bit nervous that that messed me up; but after that, I kind of got back and track and really felt the pressure...so-to-speak; the positive pressure to do well.  But, you know, I’d just say all.....those first few classes, the weed-out classes, where you go “all these people are pre-med, just like in my pledge class” and you take chemistry or biology and you lose about half of them; then you move on to organic chemistry and you lose another half of them...  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, if you didn’t mention it, that’s what I was going to ask next...\n\n(Laughing)... \n\n\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSo, I did really well with all those preliminary classes and started getting into the upper level microbiology classes and had ...after my first semester, I had a 4.0 and kept it pretty much the rest of the way through.  I took organic at UCA one summer because I heard that would be an easier way to do it, but I clinically got depressed because there was a...it was a good prep for med school because there was a test every Friday and every Thursday night, I stayed up all night getting ready for it.... I did get an “A”, but I was so emotionally wrecked at the volume...kind of like putting your mouth on a fire hydrant...the second session, I just said, “I can’t do it” and I told my parents that I’m just going to work.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, you ended up taking...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI wound up taking organic II at Fayetteville; I think I made a “B” in it, but I made an “A” in the one at UCA. Everything else, I made pretty much “A’s” in ...especially the upper level microbiology classes.  I did well; I had a mentor there, Tim Crawl, who was a professor there that encouraged me. I did the honors program, which was another thing that kind of hacked me off; my good friend, Eric Newkirk, was in business...I think he was in human resources management of something...we got to the end of our senior year and I did the honors program; Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences you have to do a research project, present it to the faculty, kind of give oral arguments, and all that stuff (oral defense)...because of that, I got Magna Cum Laude and I was talking to Eric, my friend in business college, and he said, “yeah, I’m graduating Magna Cum Laude too for just my grade point.”  He didn’t have to do anything extra and I did all this extra stuff.  The other part of that is that I applied to med school at the beginning of my senior year and I got in early at Christmas; I was already enrolled in the honors program and had my research stuff going...I had that ethical dilemma about “I’m in med school, I can just kind of bag my honors thing”....I went ahead and finished it, but it was a lot of work. I think Dr. Crawl and all the classes that I had with him, the upper level micro classes, just reaffirmed it for me that that’s ....\n\n          \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Were there other teachers in there that really had an impact on you?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nProbably one of the biggest one that I can remember, there was another teacher named Tolbert who was a microbiology professor that I can remember; but, those were the main ones.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Robin, what about any teachers that you had?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Oh there was this one, Jennifer Winningham, that I loved; we actually talked about going into business together forming a marketing firm.  We kept in touch for a while.  But she was so inspiring; she used to tell me, “I love teaching classes that you show up in.”  She taught a lot of teaching classes, but she’d say, “I always look at you because you always look like you’re really interested and care about what I’m saying and 99% of students, it’s like they had no...It’s like they’re glossed over.’” So, she really encouraged me and I do love to learn; even now, I think I’m a lot like you, I love history and I love people’s stories.  So, she encouraged me and I thought I might go truly in a journalism route; but after I got the marketing job, I moved on. \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: There was another professor I remember, because I love history; I took US History as one of the requirements and there was a guy named Tom DeBlack over at Fayetteville....a lot of what you do in class is....the examinations were essay and you bring a blue book or whatever they called it, the little packet, and you answer essay questions; he also had comments on the things I wrote and talked to me after class and things like that.  So, he was another one that I remember as a positive influence over there.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Let’s go back a little bit, I don’t know if we approached this or not; but, when did you kind of know that you were going to go into medical school? Obviously, you had the grade and you had the attitude....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: Once I got over the electrical engineering, I said, “I don’t care what anybody says, I’m putting my...I’m going to be a doctor.”  You know, I heard from a lot of people that it’s so hard; when I started talking to upper level classman about wanting to go to med-school and getting advice from my fraternity brothers, they talked about how hard it is and some of them said, “I’m just not going to do that; it’s so hard.  There is no way you can do it; it’s all this money.  It’s so expensive”...blah, blah, blah...I think after, you know, I took a few classes....maybe the second year; the end of my sophomore year...my grades were great, I was doing really well in my classes, I was reaffirmed in my interest in biology and science; that really clicked in that I was....\n\n            \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What did your family think about it at that point?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI think they were....obviously excited when I told them.   I think after my junior year when my grade was basically 4 points semester after semester and taking the MCAT and did really well on it; I only took it once and did well.  At that point, probably in my junior year, is when it really got....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you end up with any debt after college?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nExcuse me?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You didn’t end up with any debt after college?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nNo, I had some.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You didn’t have an overwhelming…\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI didn’t have overwhelming debt; I had less than $5,000...but obviously, med school brought quite a bit more.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, that’s different; a different thing all together. \n\nLet’s go back just a little bit, you graduated from high school in what year?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\n89...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Then, you graduated from college when?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWell, technically, I graduated in ’93; I walked in ’93....about two months before graduation, my advisor said, “Hey, you lack three hours of an elective” so, I wound up taking a correspondence course.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, so ’93 and microbiology was your degree....at this point, did you apply to different medical schools or did you know where you wanted to go?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Where all did you apply? \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI applied to Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Vanderbilt.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you have a preference really?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh, you know, not really....well, UAMS; I mean, I wanted to stay home.  I even did the same thing with residency; I applied to residency in Rome, Georgia...Tuscaloosa...Jackson, Tennessee and I think there were a couple of others...but at the end of that, I could’ve went to any of them and I just went, “Why would I move hours away from everybody that I know and love? \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSo, I went on up to Jonesboro.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nBut I got in early at Little Rock and after that, I mean, I think Memphis had sent me some preliminary, “come for an interview” and I just kind of let them all know that I was going to Little Rock.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That you had already made your decision....so, you started medical school in what year? \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\n93....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Tell me about the first two years…..\n\n Dr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah....Put your mouth on the fire hydrant and turn it on; I mean it was...\n\n(Laughing)\n\nIt was...you know, luckily, I had a fraternity brother that joined me at the same time and he and I were roommates: Jay Arnold who is an ER doctor for Baptist in North Little Rock and his dad was Sody Arnold who was a State Representative from Arkadelphia.  Jay and I lived together and we kind of...we had fraternity brothers that moved to Little Rock who had jobs and were driving nice cars; we were eating spam and ramen noodles and we just kind of looked at it like “our job is to go and study from 9 to-5 everyday.”\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That’s right....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSo, that’s kind of the attitude we took and you know, one day at a time and just kind of made it through.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I assume that your grades were good?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, I did really well.  I mean, I think microanatomy kind of rocked me a little bit; I didn’t have histology in college and so, I really have no prep for any of that.  There was one test that I just bombed; but, I think I had a 3.5 in med school or something like that.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Were there any teachers, again significant people, who had an impact on you during that first two years? \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThe first two years, I don’t remember any particularly.  I mean, I remember Dr. Pauly quite well; but, I don’t know that I had a lot of personal interaction with him.  My roommate did.... (Laughing)....he told my roommate one day in an anatomy lecture; he was sitting in the back and he said, “You’re paying a lot of money to come to school; why don’t you sit on the front row.  If you were going to a concert and paid a lot of money, you’d sit on the front row”..... (Laughing). But, I don’t remember a whole lot of interaction with professors in the first two years.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: At some point....it sounds like I’m jumping ahead, but I don’t mean to....at some point, you had to start thinking, “Ok, this is what I want to do when I get through with all of this”...do you remember having thoughts about that...either during college or during medical school?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah...yeah, I think initially I kind of thought about lots of different things.  Orthopedics was kind of ..I had done a summer internship at Arkansas Sports Medicine between, I think, my senior year in college and my first year of medical school just as a job and so at that point, I was kind of thinking about orthopedics. When we got into it a little bit more, Jay knew Mark Jansen; Dr. Jansen....I remember him talking about Dr. Jansen all the time.  Now Dr. Jansen is the CMO at Blue Cross and I’m on the board at Blue Cross; so, it’s kind of neat to see Jay’s mentor and we get to work together a fair amount.  But he talked about Dr. Jansen all the time, who was a family doc, and he did all this stuff and kind of how he did things; so, that was a big influence on his choice.  I think I was still undecided and had good enough grades that I had a lot of options available to me; but I think once I got in my junior rotations, what I found was that I really liked procedural and surgery quite a bit....but I also didn’t know if I wanted to be a surgeon.  I went through rotations on pediatrics and loved kids; I loved taking care of kids, but I did not want to do that to the exclusion of taking care of adults.  I liked OB, the surgical and procedural standpoint, but did not want to do that to the exclusion of taking care of males....so just every rotation I was on, I really liked. I also learned that at the University, you didn’t necessarily tell people that you wanted to be in family medicine.  At some point, I talked about ER a little bit and Med-Peds....but ultimately, I think, it was the...I didn’t feel like I wanted to leave something out of what I was doing.  I wanted a little bit of everything and that like of lead me down the family medicine path. I think the most influential thing on that decision was doing a clerkship, kind of summer internships through the AHEC program, with Dennis Yelvington...who was a mentor on mine....I think going out into the community and seeing what family docs actually do was probably the biggest part of that.  I had no idea that family docs worked the ER, did procedures, did surgery, colonoscopies....there was a guy there, Dr. Malloy, who was doing Echos.  So, I think that was probably the biggest influence on making that decision for my specialty.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I hope that you read my book, because you’re going to be in it; obviously.\n\n(Laughing)...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nWe’ll read it.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: But, I would like for you to go back and rethink...not rethink, but go over what you just got through saying there...the very earliest guys in the modern family medicine movement knew that medical students needed role models that were active and engaged in the process of medical school...not just family medicine training, but in all medicine.  From the very first; 1947 and on.....they knew that and Dr. Nicholson, who was the Dean...I can’t remember his first name; but he tried to get a residency started n the early ‘50s. He couldn’t get it started, but he started clerkships.  \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nHuh...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That was the very first family medicine clerkships; they were all guys and the original members who started the Academy of General Practice.  \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nOk..\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: It’s really interesting stuff and all your contemporaries say essentially the same thing; they are saying essentially the same thing and I think it’s a very very interesting thing.\n\nDid your...did the fact that you were born...my impression is that an awful lot of family doctors, a lot of country doctors, a lot of family doctors make the conscious decision to return to a small town or to a rural setting.  Did your life growing up in DeVall’s Bluff have an impact on where you ended up practicing?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh, yes....obviously, I’m in Mountain Home; my parents were here at the time.  But you know my time with Dennis, my relationship with Dennis, the hospital...all of that stuff kind of lead me when I was in my, I think, junior year of medical school...the beginning of my senior year, I think; I basically just approached him and said, “Hey, I’m planning on coming to Stuttgart; perhaps we can work out something we were can get some loan forgiveness or something worked out...” and I worked out a deal with him where on return they would provide me with some funds up front and it would be forgiven. So, my full intention was to go to Stuttgart; I worked that out in my senior year and was dead set to do it.  My parents lived in DeVall’s Bluff and I wanted to go back and be near my parents and all that stuff; so, that was kind of where I was set to go.\n\n  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Now you father survive a long time with his dreadful illness he had; didn’t he?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI said he had nine lives; there was at least....I said this at his funeral; there were at least nine occasions where I went, “This is it; he’s not going to make it” and then, he just... (Laughing).. ”Lazarus come forth.”  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: And he’s alive...... (Laughing)...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nHe survived some incredible stuff; heart attack...that v-tack episode...you know, they called me when I was in college saying he had a heart attack and was going to have bypass surgery....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: When did your father pass away?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nHe passed away in 2011.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Ok; so yeah, way beyond....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, he exceeded expectations.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: We were skipping over with him and now coming back to you for just a little bit...you had made a serendipitous decision it sounds like to being a drug rep; how did that happen?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Um, well, it was a good job as you know and so, I just had to try my hand at it.  I always sold something; I started out selling ice cream at Baskin Robbins when I was 14 and then moved on to shoes.  I sold those for a while and then sold cosmetics at Este Lauder; so, I could sell just about anything and I thought, “Maybe, I’ll try my hand at pharmaceuticals.”  I was pretty successful in that and did it for a long time.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How old were you when you started?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I was...well, a year out of college; so, probably 23 maybe or 24.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So this would be what year?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I did that...probably be ’96 or ’97 and I did it for seven years after Lonnie and I married; that was kind of how we ended up here, because I was traveling here and called on the Kerr Clinic.  He wanted to do OB and some of the other places, it just wasn’t an option.  You know, you can’t stay in a larger city, practice OB, and give into practice....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Right...right....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That was his day dream; so, I really fell in love with Harrison, a clinic over there...because, you know, you just fall in love with the doctors.  There were three doctors over there in family practice that I loved and you may be familiar with them; Dr. Clarey, Dr. Collins, and Dr. Langston.  I can’t recall the name of that clinic there in Harrison.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I know the name, but ....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: But, they were phenomenal; one was female and they were such good friends, all Christians, and I just loved them so much.  I told them that my husband was in residency and about to graduate and they wanted to meet with him; they were really interested in him coming, but he really wanted to do and they weren’t really interested in getting back into that. So, anyway, he said, “Isn’t there a clinic in Mountain Home that does OB?’ and I said, “Oh yeah, the Kerr Clinic; but they’re like Fort Knox and really hard to get in to. I’m not crazy about them. “Of course when I told them that my husband was interested in doing OB and family practice, they started being nice to me. So then I thought, “Ok, I’m open to that” and so, that’s kind of how it happened.  \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You’re saying, K-E-R-R....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Dr. Kerr...that’s right...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Ok, Dr. Kerr...Bob Kerr, I know who you’re talking about.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nInteresting; Bob Kerr an interesting man.\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Oh yeah; fascinating....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Didn’t he do like hip replacements or like something crazy?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, he did a lot of orthopedic stuff.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Was that a rumor?  In a true general practice...?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, he did…\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nA lot of gallbladders...hysterectomies....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I interviewed him; he’s in my last book, The Country Doctor…..\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nOh wonderful; he’s a phenomenal man.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...he is a very, very interesting man.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Uh huh...he recruited Lonnie.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Oh good; ok..\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Via me.\n\n  \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nRight..\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah...\n\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, we are now up to the mid ‘90s and you end up going to Jonesboro to the family medicine residency with Joe Stallings.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYep...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Is Joe in your book?  He’s a good guy.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, he’s in the first book, he’s in this book, and he’s......yeah....\n\nSo tell me about your experience of the three years in Jonesboro.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nIt was interesting; I had...you know, I told you that I had applied to a lot of different residencies, but I was like, “Why would I move that far away”...still moving to Jonesboro was different for me.  My med school classmate, Jay Arnold, was also going there and several of my classmates were around up there in residency class with me; so, it was exciting to actually start doing what I was planning to do with the rest of my life.  I was very gun-ho and wanted to do it all.  I was one of the few guys in my residency class who wanted to do OB and Jonesboro had a strong OB program; so, I got in with Dr. Scottlifen doing c-sections and early on, I would take other people’s OB labor patients so that I could get my numbers up and that kind of thing.  It was trying being on call every third night, I think it was...every third or fourth night.\n\n      \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So your residency was from when to when?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI started in July of ’97 and I graduated in June of 2000.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Was that the time frame ...was Mike Mercer there?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nJoe Mercer?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Mike Mercer...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMike Mercer; I don’t...\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah, he works in Mount Ida now.  Joe Mercer was his uncle.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nOh, ok...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: He may have been a little bit ahead of you...or he may have been after you; I don’t know.\n\nTalk about your residency mates; the people that you trained with.   \n\n   \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nJay and I knew each other for a long time and so, you know, we were good friends.  Tom Hollis is in Hot Springs now.\n\n     \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: He lives two doors down from me.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Really?”\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Tommy.....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nTommy......Little Tommy..\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Neat guy; that’s neat...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Little Tommy; yeah....his dad was my contemporary.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nOh wow...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: He’s a little older than I am, but he was my contemporary and Tommy’s 2-3 doors down from me. \n\n\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah....I was trying to think back; there was one guy whose name I just forgot, a med school classmate of mine, who wound up going into, I think, Med-Peds and moved away after the first year.  Dennis Blake who is...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Laugherty; isn’t there a Scott Laugherty?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nHe’s several years older and in Northwest Arkansas....I can see his face and can’t think of his name; but, he moved off and so, we had an empty slot after that.  Dennis Blake and....that was about it in my class; so, there were initially six of us and then it got down to five.  Then, we picked up an osteopath, Jeff Barber, and we all were apprehensive about what the osteopath was going to be like and how is he going to handle what we do; he was awesome.  He did great.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: He went to Wynn.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, he wound up going to Wynn.  Dennis Blake is a Piggott, I think, and yeah, we had a good class and good guys ahead of us, which is always good.  I think Scott Laugherty....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Shawn Payton was well ahead of you; wasn’t she?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nShe was two years ahead of us; in fact, I think she was....yeah, she was a third year when I was a first year.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you have a lot of debt after medical school and residency training?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nAbout $150,000.....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nBut, you know it’s good to make money; I was not use to getting a pay check.  I built a house before I moved up there, kind of got moved in, and started doing grown man things like....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Did you do a lot moonlighting during your residency?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah as soon as we could; we had to pass step three, apply for a license, get a DEA certificate, and that wound up taking....the first six months or so, you couldn’t do it; but once you got all that stuff lined out, you could.   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Where all did you moonlight?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nCherokee Village mostly....Stuttgart a lot, because I planned on going there....Wynne three times, three shifts, and I never went back.\n\n(Laughing)...It was open all night.  We called Cherokee Village, “snoozing for dollars”; I had a no hitter one night. (Laughing).....They called me one night, in the middle of the night, at Cherokee Village and said, “Dr. Robinson, we’ve got somebody down here for you to see” and I said, “Why are you calling me at home?” and they said, “You’re not at home; you’re in the call room.”\n\n(Both laughing)....\n\nI was dead to the world.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: When I was in training, which is 20-25 years before you, I remember working a weekend at St. Bernard’s....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: From 6 o’clock on Friday night until 6 o’clock on Monday morning; continuously...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nWhat?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: We were up all that....for $750; we thought we were just....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYou thought you were rich.\n\n \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: What...Oh, my stars though...\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: We thought we were rich! ...... (Laughing)....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThat’s a long shift.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: I couldn’t do that very much...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI bet it was busy...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: It was long and oh, it was busy...it was really busy. \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nI bet Memorial Christian was still around back then; the other hospital.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: No, there was another...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nCraighead Memorial.....Craighead Memorial...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Craighead memorial...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nOh, my stars; yeah...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: Was that the Methodist?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nYeah....yeah, it turned into Methodist...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So you ended up coming to ...when did ya’ll get married?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: Yeah...yeah, that’s the big question...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nResidency...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You were a drug rep and you were in the residency program....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: It was really church; we started doing a bible study together.\n\n \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah and actually, I became a believer my junior year of med school and so, that was kind of a big change in my life.  I was kind of wild and crazy, came to the Lord, and had a radical change in my life.  I became active in a church at Little Rock; I went to Fellowship Bible Church and wound up going on a medical mission trip my senior year and in my first year of residency, they let me do a month in Honduras at the same place where we had kind of gone down and done our medical mission stuff. Friends introduced us...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Drug reps...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI had a lady friend...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah, Ted Lancaster’s daughter; Mindy...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMindy, yeah, introduced us; I had somebody that I was talking to and she had somebody that she was...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Seeing...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSeeing...but, they introduced us and I don’t think that either one of us was overly...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Available.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nAvailable or...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: It was at an ASU game...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nIt was like, “hey, nice to meet you”....”nice to meet you”... that kind of thing; but I think Mindy was trying to match-make us, but there were other things going on at the time.  That was...I remember it was ASU vs. UCA; that game.  I don’t think it was homecoming, but it was a big game and we met each other, talked for a minute, and that was about it.  It was about six months later and I was walking through the hospital and she had her little table set up selling her wares.  I saw her from a distance and I was like, “Oh, yeah; that’s Robin” and so, I went up and started talking to her. We talked for a long time, I think, that day and I was much more interested on the second meeting than I was on the first.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: How about you?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Same.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nShe said that she really wasn’t up for any...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: And then Joe Stallings would say things like, “How much older are you than him?” and I was like, “he’s three months older than me”....Joe Stallings....\n\n(Laughing).....Anyway...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, you got married when?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: We got married in 1999....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYep..\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: And that was during..\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: His senior year...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Your senior year in med school....no, pardon me...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThird year residency...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Third year residency...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWe got engaged in my second year and married in my third year of residency.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: He committed to going to Stuttgart...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: And you have how many children?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: We had no children for a very long time, because we thought, “Who has time for children?”\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Busy..\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: And then, we ... I think I was hitting 30 and I thought, “Shouldn’t we talk about children?” and he said, “yeah, sure.”  We had friends who were infertile and so, I said, “Maybe we should really consider this; what if it takes us five years?” and he said, “Oh, ok.”  It didn’t really take that long, but he was very adamant at saying, “Our children are a product of our marriage and the center of our marriage.” So, we started traveling right after we got married and hit Europe a few times, Africa, and some other things; I think we went to Africa when our son was 18 months old and maybe Scotland when he was 9 months-old.  Now, we don’t go anywhere; we go to Wal-Mart maybe.  Now that we have so many, we don’t leave our house ever.\n\n  \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nRight...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: So, I’m glad we did those things; aren’t you?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, it was good.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah, because we don’t....we go to Branson occasionally.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Just so you know...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nYeah...\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: My wife and I travel a lot, we’ve both traveled a lot, but we are taking our granddaughters to Europe the day after the summer meeting this year for three weeks.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yay...that’s great; where are you taking them?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: London, Paris, and Rome; we are going to catch a flight and that’s the last time we’re going to get on an airplane.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Oh, that’s perfect....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nBy trains..\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Ride trains all across Europe and then.....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: How old are your granddaughters?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: 14 and 16...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Oh, that’s perfect...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: They are just at the right age; so, it does come back...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I will tell you; on our 20th anniversary...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWe went to the UK a couple of years.....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: On our 20th anniversary, our children kind of monopolized us; they started saying, “You know, it’s a big celebration for everyone. You and dad are celebrating your 20th, and Caroline and Stone are turning 18...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nNo.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Stone is turning 16, Caroline is turning 13, and Blaire is turning double digits, 10...so, they talked us into taking them and we did take them to London.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: So, it was great..\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWe left the day after the summer meeting.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah, we left from there.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Right in time to get back before school….\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: We did.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That’s what were supposed to do.....now, we need to talk about...we don’t have to talk about any of this, but we need to talk about the Academy and the changes that have gone on in medicine since you finished your residency.  I started to stop the book in 2000, because it’s hard to write history about things that haven’t actually played out yet.   Most of the things that are going on in family medicine right now, the big issues, really haven’t worked themselves out. If you look at the Future of family Medicine Collaborative in 2002, you look at the Patient Centered Medical Home, you look at electronic medical records, look at telemedicine, look at reimbursement issues....reimbursement issues have gone back forever...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nNon-stop...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That goes back well before your doctor discouraged you from going to into medicine; reimbursement issues were way, way, way back there .. \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nRight.\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: But all those other issues are essentially brand new issues; I mean, they really are brand new issues.  Let’s talk a little bit about...I know you’re politically active.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh huh.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Let’s talk a little bit about your involvement with the Academy; when did you start getting involved with the Academy....how could you not be involved in the Academy if you’re in Joe Stallings program....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThat’s right....that’s right...obviously, Joe is part of that; I don’t think when I was in residency that it was a s big a priority for me as it was after I got out.  We had a great time with the Jonesboro contingency when we were.....as students we went to the student meeting in Kansas City and met with Wagner; what was her name...she was the residency coordinator....Doris?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Uh huh...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nDoris Wagner; she was part of the reason that we went there.  She took us out and showed us a good time. Tom, Jay, and I just thought that that was where we ought to go.  But Joe obviously instilled in all the residents....he encouraged all the residents, gave them the opportunity to be a part of the Academy,  go to the meetings, and that kind of thing and I think that really was helpful in emphasizing the importance of being involved in that.  I think after I got out of the residency, it was important for me for CME; but also, just seeing the changes that were taking place and how can one person have a voice.  It’s hard for one person to have a voice and I think the Academy does a good job of being the voice for the family doctor; if you think about it, the largest single specialty organization in the state and I think that carries some political weight when you’re having conversations and engaging, especially in a political process.  But, man it has changed; I don’t think when I first started serving on the board that I had any kind of aspirations to....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: When did you first start on the board in the Academy?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nIt was really early; I mean, it was probably 2002 when they asked if I would be on the board in the first 2 to 3 years that I was out of residency.  I didn’t know that that would lead to anything; I was just, “Yeah, I’d be glad to do that.”  It was fun and I enjoyed being part of it, but I think after a few years of that there was this conversation of, “You know this leads to you being President at some point.Laughing....\n\n“And I was like, “I had no idea” and then, I became more involved.\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: It’s a trick...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Right....yeah.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nKind of being in that and seeing, you know, Joe...Mike Moody...and some of those people who I admired for their leadership and kind of recognizing that those guys are kind of fading out and lot of the people that I looked towards...now, it’s kind of our turn for you to look around and see myself and my peers...whose going to kind of step up and speak, I think, specifically for....in the academy you get this wonderful mix of people that, for me personally, it’s independent, small, decentralized primary care doctors out in the community and whose going to speak for them; because if you’re working for a system, the system kind of tries to lead the process of making sure that the reimbursements are right.  But, I think the independent docs, my passion...as I saw PCMH, value based payment, and all those things kind of coming around, I saw that as an opportunity for the independent primary care doctor to kind of become what they should become as part of influencing the direction of where medicine was going. You know, I heard a lot of...Rick Conan one time at our state meeting, he was I think National President and served on the board of directors for the National Academy talked about the power of primary care and its influence and you know, he talked about that graft that we always see of the 13 developed countries and how we...quite frankly suck...compared to what we spend what we get...and he said, “What is the difference?” The difference is that all those other countries have a very highly developed primary care system and primary care dominates kind of the delivery of healthcare in those countries.  You also look at primary care spend and what countries spend on primary care...and how little we spend on primary care; really primary care is the answer, I think, to all of the problems that we face in our medical system if we let it be what it’s going to be.  In order to do that, we’ve got to recruit students to join it...insurance companies to pay for it the way it should be paid for...and I just saw that as kind of a time...it was 2012 when the Arkansas PCMH Program launched and CPC, the first one, came out the same year.  I was President in 2013 and so, that was the moment that I was able to plug into a lot of different opportunities; the strategic advisory board for Medicaid PCMH and being involved in some of that process and kind of being the voice of, “Hey, I don’t think that’s going to work in real life practice; these things that you guys are laying on these practices are not a good idea” or “yes, that is a good idea; but we’ve really got to make sure that the funds flow appropriately so that the docs get on, the employed docs, and how are they going to benefit from that?”..Because I remember in some of those conversations about PCMH and increased reimbursement that the employed docs were like, “Why does that matter to me if Baptist is going to skim all that and I’m not going to get any of it?”..and trying to find their way to work through all that process.                        \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Has PCMH lost some of its power?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI think if you look nationwide from PCP Classic and CPC Plus, CPC Plus was ended a year early because it just didn’t...apparently CMS didn’t see the kind of return on investment and the gist of it was that some of the practices kind of took the money and ran; they didn’t really kind of integrate the principals of PCMH and actually put that to work and so, CMS impression was that, “this is not working because people are taking the money and not making the change.”   But I do think if you look at high functioning practices, there was clear evidence of reduced hospitalizations, decreased ER visits, and improved quality of care; but I think there were pockets of that and there were certainly practices who took their money and didn’t make the change, which is very unfortunate. I do think value-based care is here to stay; I think all the payers are kind of signaling that “we want to move away from fee for service” almost to a capitated –type system.   I’m not sure that we’re ready for a full-capitation, but certainly the drift is that direction.\n\n     \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: This is actually one of the reasons that I thought about stopping the history in 2000, because a lot of it hasn’t been worked out; that’s why I’m here.   I’m not going to put words in your mouth, but it hasn’t been worked out yet; not fully worked out.....Is that fair to say? \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWell, yeah; I think there’s clearly reward for making primary care what it should be; though the logistics of that are much harder of achieving that.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Ok....there are a couple other issues; talk about EMRs and the practicalities of EMRs...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: Not practical....I am an over-paid data entry person; in fact, I came to this point about 6-7 years ago where I went, “I can’t do this.”  It was...I was burned out just from trying to handle everything that had to happen in the EMR and what I really needed to do to take care of my patient and I started... I went to and AAFP meeting and the guy there talked about using Scribes.  He had three MAs and three rooms and basically, the MA would go and get the patient from the waiting room, take them in the room and take their vitals, and sit and wait on him.  He would go room to room with each MA, who did all the computer work, and he just did the doctor work; that made an impression on me and I started using a scribe shortly after that.  I am never going back; I just...the unfortunate thing to that is that it costs money.  The EMR is designed to capture data and organize it better; as some of my colleagues have called it, “it’s an electronic billing system” not an electronic medical records system. But, it certainly takes away from the doctor/patient relationship; I’m trained to take care of people not to code, bill, and all that stuff.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Talk about telemedicine.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nTelemedicine, I think, has been interesting and obviously, the pandemic pushed it forward quite a bit; but, I started doing some telemedicine before the pandemic.  I saw that as an opportunity to.....first of all, I was concerned about outside entities coming in and undermining primary care relationships with patient; the Teledocs and all those of the world. So, I was interested in it and kind of wanted to see how it kind of worked.  I also was looking for some “Ha-ha money” as I call it; I always felt like if I made money on the side on my own that I could buy hunting equipment with it and I wouldn’t have to explain it to my wife...because it was extra money.\n\n    \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: What was that?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, you heard me; so, I started looking at doing that and got credentialed with Teledoc.  I started doing that on some free time; like a lot of times when I’m home on the weekends and everybody’s asleep...before ten a.m...I’d get up and see a few patients on that and make some side money and just kind of felt it out for how it goes.  But, I think telemedicine is...would be most helpful in the hands of a primary care doctor with an ongoing relationship with a patient and taking care of them in a longitudinal kind-of relationship.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Right...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI think the quick hit, the urgent care type thing, that a lot of the services run is not helpful. My concern from the beginning is that it’s going to be antibiotic vending machines, poor quality care...\n\n      \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That’s the first time I’ve heard that term; I like that term, “antibiotic vending machine.”\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah....if you look at some of the urgent cares, predominantly they are run by nurse practitioners; not always, but....I’ve never seen somebody come out of the Med Express here who didn’t come out with an antibiotic.  Most of the time, they were sick for two days and got a snotty nose; got an antibiotic and I was like, “you have a virus and didn’t need antibiotics.”  So, I am very conscientious about those things and it drives me nuts when I tell people they have a virus and they go immediately to the Med Express and get a Z-pack.  Like I said, I think telemedicine is good for some things; the thing about rural Arkansas, some of my patients drive an hour-and-a-half to come see me and then wait in my waiting room for 45 minutes.  I think it is a very useful tool, but I think it really has the most power when it’s put in the hands of a longitudinal relationship of a primary care doctor.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Right...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nAnd we obviously used it a lot during the pandemic.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Do you have nurse practitioners in your practice?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWe do.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: My impression...my practice that I was in used nurse practitioners.....is that there’s been a kind of uneasy alliance between nurse practitioner, physician assistants, and primary care doctors over the years and the farther you get away from the epicenter in Little Rock, the less uneasy that alliance is.  The Scope of Practice Law in what...’18... ’19...or ...’20, whenever it was passed, do you think will be a good law or a bad law?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI think it will be a bad law and the reason is....I think nurse practitioners generally do a good job for what they are trained for.  I think the ones that I work with...the nurse practitioners in our clinic and the ones that I know best...would never say to me that they aspire to be on their own, out on their own, and doing their own thing. Most of them say, “I want supervision” and I think the thing that irks me the most about the legislation that they bring is the false premise of the legislation; typically, it is, “There’s a shortage of providers and we stand ready to fill that”...”doctors aren’t going to rural areas; we’re going to fill those areas up with nurse practitioners”....”Our training is the same.”  I had one testifying in public health that said, “There is no difference in the training between nurse practitioners and doctors.”  The false primus is what gets me.  Now if you look at Arizona, they have had full independent practice for nurse practitioners for 20 years.  There are, I think, in the state of Arizona seven nurse practitioners practicing completely independent of other doctors and they are distributed in exactly the same geographic areas a physicians; so, we know from other states that have done this that they do not flock to rural areas and they tend to stay affiliated with primarily sub-specialties like cardiology, dermatology...name-your-ology.....so the false premise of “we’re going to flock to rural areas and solve the provider shortage” is a false primus and one that they advertise every time, but their goal is basically unfettered practice and I wish they would just say that.  You know, “we just don’t want anybody over us”...”fair enough, don’t say you’re going to do all these things that we know you’re not going to do.”...But, that’s politics.\n\n                 \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You are how old now?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\n50.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: You’ve probably got another 20 years of practice; at least.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWe’ll see...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Is your health good?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nMy health is good.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Robin, your health is good?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yes...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: Is my health good?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nYes...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What do you do for fun? Besides work; I know you enjoy your work.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh, raising kids is a hobby of ours.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Uh huh...we used to run marathons, but we haven’t done that in a while.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, we used to run.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Now, we just eat better; we didn’t eat well when we ran marathons.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, I gained 10 lbs running in marathons.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: We fostered for seven years...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, we’ve been foster parents.  We’re active in our church.  We try to be active in the community; Robin has a ministry at the jail with the ladies. She has bible studies on Sundays and she has worked at a women’s shelter, kind of a half-way house, where she kind of mentored ladies.  I volunteered at the Christian Clinic and I kind of helped start a pregnancy resource center here in Mountain Home and so, we have nonprofits that we work for. But a lot of that took place either when our kids were younger or before we had kids. As she said, we ran for a season; we’re not doing that anymore. I enjoy hunting and I would also say fishing, but fishing is really not my gig. Robin likes to “Junk” as she calls it.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yes...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nShe likes to go to thrift stores.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Antiques in junk stores...do you like antiques?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nTell him how much that piano cost.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I love old books; I have lots of old books.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nTell him how much you paid for that piano.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: $275...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Oh my; isn’t that wonderful...Where? \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: At a yard sale...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: And it doesn’t weigh very much....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I thought it was $2,750 and I was like, “I’ll take it” and then, I realized it was $275.  But, I love old books; I have the “Pilgrims Progress” from the 1800s.  Do you love old books?  It’s so much fun.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah...yeah, we have a piano that’s about....if you cut this off right here, it’s this size....and it took four men to get it down in my house. \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: It did ruin our floor....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Oh yeah, I was kidding about the weight...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: We didn’t have any idea about that; yeah....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: At some point, you will start thinking about retirement; this is a little bit premature for us to even be talking about this...but....\n\n(Crying in the background)....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: With a four year old, that maybe later than most doctors....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nUh, the four year old will be graduating high school and we will be eligible for Medicare that year.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: (Laughing) \n\nOk, good...alright, that maybe a moot point at this point....\n\nI’ve got a few other things that I left out of the family practice thing that we haven’t talked about yet....when I first started practicing the Southern Medical Association was still a thing and the County Medical Society was still a thing; we had regular meetings once a month, but both of those things have pretty well gone away. \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nThey have...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Just gone away completely...so how does the Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians, the National Academy of Family Physicians, the American Medical Society, and the Arkansas Medical Society keep from going the same way?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Huh...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThat’s a good question and we’ve been wrestling with that for a while.  There are some generational traces, which I’m sure you’ve seen...the baby boomers and to some degree the ...what are we....Gen-X?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Uh huh...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nTend to be more likely to affiliate with the associations and professional organizations were as Millennials, Gen-Y, and Gen-Z...just don’t; they aren’t into it.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Interesting...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSo, I think that is a trend that has affecting it.  Yet, we’ve seen the AAFP, the national, kind of swell to like 120,000 members. You know the state academy, we’ve seen ebbs and flows and it’s fairly steady; but I do think that you are right, there was more of a collegiality in the past among docs and the way they gathered together on a regular basis.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: As a practicing physician, you’ve got to have your 150 hours every three years; but back when I started, you could get continuing education but you had to work for it.  Now, you can go on the internet for an hour or two hours and get twenty hours.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nOh yeah...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Right....right....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nSee; they used to do the drawing... yeah the drawing card, but it’s not necessary anymore for CME.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Neither is the social component; you can stay in touch and not physically meet.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yeah....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nThat is sad.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: So, it’ll be interesting...I’m coming to y’alls meeting in June that you’re having up at Petit Jean...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Just to listen and I promise, I’ll try to keep my mouth shut.  I’m going to be there just listening as a historian.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI don’t know that you should keep your mouth shut.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: So, you’ve been an active member for years and years?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Oh yeah...in and out; you know.  I was not active like you’re active; I really didn’t...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nOk, you didn’t serve as President?  You didn’t do your stint?”\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Oh, no....no...no, I didn’t do my stint. I had other things that I was doing in my life that just rally dominated my life....including writing.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: \n\nSure...sure...sure...\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Anyway, I was there; but I wasn’t that active.\n\nI pretty well have asked most of the questions that I normally ask, that are pertinent...there are a few that are not pertinent, but I have two more questions that I did not put in the questionnaire.  I don’t ever put them in the questionnaire and they are not trick questions; ok.  .\n\nThis is for both of you .... In 50-70 years from now, you’re going to be a picture on the wall.  You have great, great, great grandchildren out there; what do you want for them to know about you?  \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah, I would say what I want them to know about me probably has nothing to do with medicine.  I would want them to know and believe that I was a man of character and that I loved Jesus more than anything else.  I loved my family and I cared about my family more than I cared about my job.  I love my job and I love my work; I’m a doctor and there have been seasons where I kind of get burned out.  I talked about getting a scribe and everywhere along the way, there has been something that kind of rejuvenates me a season; the AAFP was one of those.  PCMH was part of that and I kind of became the coordinator of our practice for all of that; the director if you will of the data-base programs.\n\n   \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Has it worked well?\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nI think so; we’ve been able to kind of balance the traditional thing at Kerr... the MO of the Kerr Clinic was “Turn the crank and see patients.”  He probably saw 50 patients a day; he saw more in three days than I saw in five and to be able to kind of morph that into value and volume and be able to kind of handle that well, but part of that also, Kerr’s motto, was “The answer is yes; we’re going to do whatever we need to do to take care of the patient and we’re on call 24-7.”  We took care of people.  The other big transition was....when I got here, I wanted to do it all; I mean, we took care of hospital patients, delivered babies, nursing homes....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: You made home visits....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nHome visits...I mean, we did everything.  After about seven years of that, I was like...at one point, I looked at them and said, “I’m really tired”....I was getting burned out.  I mean, there would be weekends...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I think too at Kerr’s retirement party, it was eye opening for us; I don’t recall at that point how old our children were...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nThey were already....he retired in like ’04 or ’05...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: So, they were young; our children were young and I recall one of his sons saying...jokingly.... about how his mom would say, “When your dad gets home” and he was like,”oh just slide our food under the door”...basically, the gist of it was that he was never home.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Right.....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: And I think at that point, we just...our eyes were open and we said....you know, I think it’s sweet how Lonnie would often say people would approach him  in Wal-Mart and they’d say, “hey, Dr. Robinson” and he’d say, “Dr. Robinson works at the hospital; my name is Lonnie.  It is my occupation, but it’s not my identity.” So, I think we made a conscious effort years ago to kind of separate from the fray and kind of ....what did we say...“It’s good to be weird.”   So, we just kind of did stuff differently and decided that we wanted to create a legacy for our children, a generational thing; especially having come from families that really didn’t place an emphasis on faith, intentionality, and even education because we feel like that is important as well. So, we wanted to do things a little bit different and not be so consumed....because we did for a little bit....we were kind of entangled in the business and the social component of the doctor life; am I making sense?   \n\n          \n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYeah... sure.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Sure; there is no such thing as rambling...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Yeah, so we just kind of separated from that and so, we don’t get tangled up in “keeping up” kind of stuff.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nWell, I think she’s been a good....I don’t know if throttle is the right word for me....but, there were weekends, on Saturdays, that I’d be on call and I’d go to the hospital when it was  dark outside and it would be dark when I left.\n\n  \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: It’d be dark when he got home.\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: \n\nYou get up there between the hospital, four in the ICU, two girls in labor, one delivered and you’re about ready to go home, and they go, “Oh, you’ve got another one here with her water broke” and I’d just kind of wanted to cry a little bit.\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: But, I think also...do you recall when we were in D.C. at the meeting and you were up for a position nationally...do you remember...and he loved it; I saw that he loved it....and I loved it that he loved it...but I started asking these questions on our walk back to our hotel; “Why do you do this?”..”Why are you doing this?”...and he said, “Why?”....So there was a little bit of tension there and I said, “I just want to know why.”  He said, “I don’t know; I think sometimes it’s...I’m in the clinic all the time and it’s just mundane.  I do get energized by being around colleagues that are like-minded. He can identify with all this and “so, it’s energizing and I do love it” and I just said, “As a mom and a wife, look around you; all of these people here, their children are grown...not all of them, but 80% of their children are grown.  So, there’s going to be time for that Lord-willing, but now, we can’t get back these days.”  And, I think he’s been great in saying, “I can’t get back these days.”\n\nDr. Lonnie Robertson\n\nNo, it was good because, you know, I was receiving some encouragement to move in that direction and it’s flattering to have people encourage you in that...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Sure....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robertson\n\nBut, I think my wife’s blessing is good for me here.\n\n          \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Kind of like your basketball coach when you were in high school...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson\n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robinson: Not exactly what I wanted to hear and didn’t feed my ego as much as the other.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Ok Robin, back to my question....you’re a picture on the wall in 55, 60, 70 years from now, what do you want them to know about you?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: It’s the same and what keeps me awake at night...it may be the same for you...”did I serve my family and did I love them well?”...Because in the end, that will outlast this life; not you know....I hear my kids talking; I’m very active.  Our kids go to the private Christian School here and I’ve been on the board for 14 years, it’s kind of my job that I don’t get paid for.  It’s important to me and I spend a lot of time doing a lot of things; we had a father-daughter ball that I kind of created 11 years ago after my four years old birthday.  We raised $52,000 over a weekend and had 1,000 people come. It’s a wonderful thing, but what keeps me awake at night is the thought that, “not of that really matters because I’ve neglected my children over the last month getting ready for this.” I neglected my home. I neglected my disabled mother who lives behind me that we house and my disabled mother-in-law who lives across the street. So, the things that keep us awake at night are, “Are we serving our family in the way that honors the Lord?”  So, when I say that that keeps us up at night is because we fall short a lot; there are a lot of people who on depend us.  We have legal custody of my niece and we adopted our youngest; we do the best that we can.  Lonnie said to me, “Probably...” and your wife might have said this to you...I think we had been married maybe 10 years and I’d always say things like, ”Well, next month” or “after this weekend”...I’d catch myself saying that a lot and finally, he just stooped me and said, “Hey Robin, you’ve got to stop talking like that. We have to actually live in the crazy because it’s never actually going to slow down. So, let’s live in the crazy and let’s not say, “When this passes, it will be easier; because that’s a big lie.  It’s not going to be slower.”\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Right..\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: And look at you; you’re retired and you’re probably traveling all over the place.\n\n     \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Sure...sure....\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: So, we just have to live in the crazy; don’t’ we?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Yes; the answer is yes.\n\nLast question...unless you have any other things you’d like to say that we haven’t talked about...\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: No...\n\n\nDr. Lonnie Robertson\n\nNo; I just think its interesting kind of my personal approach to just the clinical side of things.  I wanted to do it all: deliver babies, c-sections, laparoscopic tubals, vasectomies, ICU care, everything in the hospital....till now when the hospitalists came on board and I was like, “I’m never going to go that.  That’s awful for patient care.  Continently is very important”...I’m really tired.”\n\n(All laughing)....\n\nAnd the thought of not having to round on 20 on the weekend in February, it’s pretty attractive. So then, we switched over to that and we’re still doing OB and its like, “You know, I’ve delivered a lot of babies....\n\n   \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: 2,000...\n\nDr. Lonnie Robertson\n\nI’ve enjoyed it, but I think I’m ready to stop”...what is that going to look like?  My partners who quit before me, I was like, “Old guys...washed up...”\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Losers...   (Laughing)....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robertson\n\nI can’t believe they quit OB: and you know, “they’re just regular doctors now.” (Laughing)...”all of those things just kind of ran through my head and I’m finally going,”Yeah, I think I can take call from the Virgin Islands if I didn’t do OB.” Now, at some point, the Christian School went to a 4-day school week and I basically went to my partners and said, “I’m going to try to match my practice to my kid’s school week and I’m going to be off on Fridays and work four days” and they said, “Ok.”\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: We’ve done that for three years.\n\n    \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: And this worked?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: Oh yeah....\n\nDr. Lonnie Robertson\n\nYeah, so basically I’m kind of clinical only four days a week; I tell people all the time, “I’m regressing as a doctor and doing less and less as a physician.” (Laughing)...  \n\n \n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: That last sounds good.\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: Last question; your great, great grandchildren, what do you want for them?  \n\nDr. Lonnie Robertson\n\nI think a picture, even though I’m a selfish person, I hope there is some indication that I lived outside of myself and I tried to serve others well.  I lived for something outside of this life and I loved and serves others well.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: What about you Robin?\n\nRobin Bobbitt-Robinson: I feel that same way.  I think just from a parenting standpoint for the first this year in January,  we had a ...we talk about having a planning session for every group and every organization that we’re a part of, every board that we’re on...and we had a planning session for our family.  We’re embarrassed to say, “its’ the first one we’ve ever had” but our children were engaged and it was a lovely event.  We did it at Big Cedar and they were engaged so long that we missed lunch and we didn’t even know it.  We want to parent for the fifth generation and be mindful of the way we’re talking now; it’s not just for these children, but for four generations from now. And storytelling, we think it’s important what you’re doing right now; it’s a lost art and we want our children to hear stories about our parents and stories about when we were young. We want them to be storytellers and that legacy to continue; but ultimately we have received grace through Jesus, through Christ, and it isn’t supposed to stop with us.  How sad would that be; so, our legacy would be that...hopefully, Lonnie and I kind of started a new or have broken that God-less family and are moving forward with a legacy of faith that will indeed outlast this life That is our greatest desire, our children...we want them to be educated, but ultimately we want them to know the Lord and live according to his truth and that sort of thing; that is the big component of our life and really what brought us together.\n\n           \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: That is the total of my questioning; thank you, Dr. Robinson; I appreciate this.  It was great fun and I have enjoyed it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/99097/file/196792#t=0.0,6990.2833"}]}]}]}