by Tom Chillemi
Dr. James Robusto was one of only three of 120 graduates in his graduating class at Johns Hopkins University who chose family medicine as their specialty.
There are hundreds of patients who are glad he decided to practice family medicine in Urbanna.
After 33 years, Dr. Robusto is retiring, closing a chapter on the story of a doctor who chose Urbanna for his home, and never looked back.
Dr. Robusto and his wife Kerry moved to Urbanna in July, 1986, a few days after finishing his family medicine residency at Riverside Regional Hospital. He had made arrangements to assume Dr. Arthur Van Name’s medical practice that was located on Virginia Street across from the Urbanna Post Office.
When physicians graduate from medical school, most of them go on to a residency for additional training in a specialty. Residencies vary in length depending on the specialty. Family medicine is a specialty that requires a 3-year residency.
When he entered his third year of residency in July, 1985, Dr. Robusto started planning his next step. “Kerry and I had been married less than a year, we did not have children and our families were still mainly in the Baltimore area, but I did not want to go back to Baltimore or any other large city,” he explained.
Timing is everything
Dr. Robusto went to see his residency director Stan Mitchell, who asked him where he wanted to practice medicine. “He was our go-to person for guidance on planning and available jobs,” explained Dr. Robusto. The director told Dr. Robusto that after taking the Family Medicine Boards he would be eligible to practice in whatever venue he wanted. Because family physicians are in demand, they can practice wherever they desire—city or country, large group or solo practice.
“When I told him I really wanted to be in a small town on the water, I saw the light bulb turn on above his head,” recalled Robusto. “He told me to sit down, don’t go anywhere because one of his old friends, Dr. Art Van Name, wanted to retire from his Urbanna practice that he had started in the 1940s.
Mitchell called Dr. Van Name while Dr. Robusto was sitting in his office. “Hey Art, this is Stan Mitchell. I have a young man here who will be graduating from my program next year (1986) who wants to practice in a small town on the water. Would you like to talk to him?” Dr. Robusto talked with Dr. Van Name, they exchanged contact information—and the rest is history.
The Robustos initially moved to Locust Hill and lived in a house behind what was then Mizpah Healthcare Center. It was owned by Myrtle and Bill Faulkner. Out of kindness, they rented that house very inexpensively to help the Robustos get established.
Dr. Robusto started his practice in the office across from the Urbanna Post Office in 1986. Soon his decision to come to a small town on the water was reinforced. “When I was new in the office and the practice was not really busy, the men who came in frequently gave me advice on where to fish, what to use for bait and what was biting.”
Home
Over the following 33 years, they bought a house on Urbanna Creek, built and operated a practice on Old Virginia Street just outside of town and raised a daughter. Kelsey was born in 1988, graduated from William & Mary in 2011, and is now operating her own business in Richmond.
There was an outpouring from the community when Kelsey was born. People brought gifts and cards to his office and he took them home where he and Kerry would open them and read the cards. “There were many occasions when we did not recognize the name of the person who gave a gift,” he remembers. “Sometimes when someone came to the office for their first visit with me weeks or months later they would ask if I had gotten their card or gift.
“It wasn’t unusual for them to say that they knew we were young and starting a family, so they brought the gift before they even knew us. Once or twice, I had men tell me, ‘Mama liked you. She told me and my wife that we should give you a gift, so we did. Mama was always right.’ ”
Stay here
The list of things that have kept the Robustos in Middlesex County include “the many wonderful, friendly, kind people we have been fortunate enough to know,” he said. “Although we knew a lot of wonderful people in other places, we have been impressed and struck by the people here who initially took us in, embraced us, helped us and have shown kindness and understanding over the years.”
Added to the great people they have known is a natural beauty and lifestyle that is second to none. Dr. Robusto often starts his day on their screened porch overlooking Urbanna Creek. “I don’t have to go back to the city to be reminded of how lucky I am to not have to deal with crowds, traffic, noise, crime and high taxes,” he said.
Diversity
Family physicians who practice in urban areas and those who are employed by hospital systems are often limited in their scope of practice because they are surrounded by other physicians of other specialties, explained Dr. Robusto. “Over the years, I have included dermatology surgery along with joint and soft tissue injections for orthopedic problems in my practice. Family medicine physicians in urban areas often rely on the other specialists to treat those things because dermatologists and orthopedists are close by or the patient comes in assuming he will need a referral or because the hospital system pressures the primary care physicians (PCP) to not provide those services.”
In addition to his practice, Dr. Robusto also has tended to patients in nursing homes, been a medical director for a nursing home and home healthcare agency, and worked part-time in an emergency department and at an urgent care center. One of Dr. Robusto’s patients recalls that when he had an emergency, Dr. Robusto was on duty at the hospital and stayed on after his shift to attend to him.
Searching
Dr. Robusto is affiliated with Tidewater Physicians Multispecialty Group (TPMG), which has looked, without success, for a physician to replace him. “I think there are a number of reasons for that. But when I have talked with potential physician candidates about this area and my practice, they think I am telling them a fairy tale and trying to sell them something,” he said.
“For example, when I tell them I can sit on my porch and look out at the water, watch bald eagles fly by, watch the same great blue heron feeding in its territory, listen to the birds, chase deer away from my bushes and flowers, watch muskrats and otters swim and feed, watch eagles teach their young how to fly . . . they look at me as if I am imagining things.” All of this is at his home one mile from his office.
“I tell them that nearly all of the houses near my house are second homes for their owners. The owners come here to get away from wherever they usually live and work. I have never wanted or needed a second home to get away from my first home. They look at me as if I am a simple older guy expressing wishful thinking. I am a simple older guy who has wishful thinking, but it is not about that,” he said.
As of last week, Dr. Robusto was still trying to find a replacement for him. “The list of positive qualities in the area seems too good to be true,” he said. In addition to a lifestyle that is second to none, the earning potential is great for a physician who wants to expand his scope of practice beyond family medicine.
Retirement
“We now have reached the point in our lives where we are planning our retirement,” said Dr. Robusto. “We plan to stay in the area and enjoy more of the wonderful people and things this area has to offer, including time on the water, the peace and quiet.
“I will spend more time doing the projects I have planned, such as landscaping. I will do more fishing, crabbing, boating and woodworking. I will continue doing what I spend a lot of time doing what I do already, namely fixing broken things. It seems like I spend half my time fixing everything from household plumbing and electrical things, boat electronics, household wooden steps and walkways. But that is what I also enjoy.”
If the past is any indication, Dr. Robusto will continue to learn. Just a few years ago he earned his MBA at the College of William and Mary.
The Robustos will also do some traveling. “I am interested in seeing more of the United States, namely, more of the historic sites that make Americans Americans,” he said.
Legacy
It’s likely Dr. Robusto’s legacy will be remembered by hundreds of patients who relied on him for three decades. And if he encounters a former patient at the post office and asks how they are doing, they just might tell him.
To many Dr. Robusto remains a friend to the end—and beyond.
