Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2010 | Page 80

life

FASHION, HEALTH & BEAUTY

February/March 2010

Bracing himself
for his busy life
He straightens teeth, but
Consultant Orthodontist Stephen
Robinson of St Mary’s Hospital
does so much more, as he tells Roz
Whistance
“I have an unusual life, and an unusual
job,” says Stephen Robinson, Consultant
Orthodontist at St Mary’s hospital. For over 20
years Mr Robinson has been commuting to the
Island to see patients who may need more than
just a brace on their teeth. Mr Robinson has a
particular expertise that goes beyond average
orthodontics.
“I’m dentally trained but have gone through
a specialist training scheme which has led to
me being a consultant. I come here to St Mary’s
on a Monday, but spend most of my working
life at the Spires Cleft Lip and Palate Centre in
Salisbury, where I am the clinical director.”
When he took the job in Salisbury, colleagues
presumed he would give up his job at St Mary’s.
But he didn’t want to. “I’ve always liked
working on the Island because it’s different.
It’s very close knit, like a big town. In the

‘My role, in combination
with surgeons, is to
restore a child back to
normality’
hospital there is a greater variety of cases,
too.” He says St Mary’s is ‘about the right size’
to make it a happy working environment. “You
know everyone from the cleaner to the chief
executive.”
He might be here just one day a week, but
Mr Robinson gives the Island good value. His
level of expertise is out of the ordinary: “I treat
orthodontic patients, people with cleft lip and
palate problems, people with cranio-facial
deformities such as abnormal jaw and tooth
development. With my surgical colleagues
I work out how best the problem can be
managed.”
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Some of his work deals with accident trauma,
but the majority of it involves children whose
natural development needs some sort of
correction. You can tell he enjoys working
with children: his cheery manner puts them at
their ease. “Working with children keeps you
young,” he says, adding: “Children can be
95 per cent fantastic and 5 per cent a pain –
this applies to my own kids and those I treat!
It gives you great pleasure to see the results
in the young people. Orthodontics is a very
positive branch of dentistry.”
Stephen Robinson is particularly proud of
the way in which waiting time for treatment
has been reduced, thanks to the Island’s
“orthodontic managed clinical network”. It
is a system which he developed with Island
colleagues, and which he co-ordinates with
the Primary Care Trust. So now patients go to
a central point – St Mary’s – where they are
assessed, then depending on the outcome
are either treated by one of the Island’s
orthodontists or taken on by Mr Robinson
himself.
“My role should be to only treat people
too complex for other people to treat, who
require some sort of surgical intervention,”
he explains. “A child born with a cleft lip and
palate would have initial repairs by a surgeon
in Salisbury but might also have problem jaw
and tooth development, which is where I come
in. They might then need a speech therapist,
or a psychologist for social problems. It’s
multi-disciplinary care.”
Amazingly Mr Robinson finds time to coach an
under 15s football team in Portsmouth, as well
as chairing a social support group for parents
of cleft palate children. “It’s a busy life,” he
agrees, “but a fulfilling one.”

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