Dr. Robert and Ruth Nara (Part One)

Dr. Robert & Ruth Nara Visit (Part 1, Introduction)

You are already well-acquainted with Dr. Robert O.Nara if you've spent any time at the Oramedia site (particularly the 1979 Mother Earth News interview at http://mizar5.com/menews.htm ) or have read 'Money by the Mouthful' and 'How to Become Dentally Self Sufficient.'

I met Bob through those books in 1980. 26 years later we met face-to-face in Myrtle Beach, SC and... the guy is huge. I mean, he certainly is a big guy, physically, and at Dr. Robert and Ruth Nara, Myrtle Beach, SC February, 2005

Dr. Robert and Ruth Nara, Myrtle Beach, SC February, 2005

69, he and Ruth still manage over a thousand acres of forest in Michigan's Upper Penninsula - and they're still out there daily, despite the rugged conditions way up there.

Bob's got a large presence, though. No doubt, he is the opitome of self-sufficiency. While others dream, Bob & Ruth get a notion, make a decision to take on a project and it's a 'done deal.' They'll have a dozen projects in the works at any given time and pretty much handle all they tackle all by themselves. "Once a decision is made," says Bob, "we don't waffle, we carry it through."

Since this was our first meeting, it was decided to get in as much time as possible and we normally met at their hotel for breakfast around 8:30, where we'd discuss the topic of the day. We'd knock off around noon and meet up again at 2 or so and go through dinner.

Bob and Ruth Nara talked at length about their lives together, which amounts to about 50 years; dental school, his stint as a Navy dentist and their successful dental practice in Houghton, Michigan. They philosophize a great deal and attribute their lives' success to strict adherance to known, workable principles.

One focus of the visit was on dentistry and the Naras' original Oramedics program - why it worked and why the dental associations wanted Dr. Nara shut down for promoting it. Bob figures one of the big reasons he caught so much flack was the embarassment caused to the profession by the following 'Decayed, Missing, Filled' (DMF) chart published back in 1972...

"Now this was a real killer," he added, "a lot of these guys were promoting 'preventive dentistry' and these are their statistics. These are embarassing statistics and it's worse today. The only problem is that you can't find a current chart like this published for the United States! It doesn't exist, and the reason why...? The state of our nation's oral health is a mess and the ADA doesn't want to admit it. Nobody is out there practicing real preventive dentistry! The money is in the drilling and filling and other repair work... The money is in prosthetics - dentures. I feel that a dentist who promotes and sells dentures is like a medical doctor who sells coffins!"

"The goose and golden egg was dental insurance. You used to go to the dentist and pay $20 for a filling... when dental insurance plans came out, the rates went to $100 for a filling, for example. If you didn't have insurance, well, you still paid $100. That was in the 1970s. Health costs today are crippling this nation and dental insurance is making dentists rich. They are surpassing medical doctors for income. One of the reasons is this: If a surgeon removes a gall bladder, for example, well, it goes straight to the pathology lab. If it was healthy and didn't need to be removed, the doctor might hear about it. If he removes too many healthy ones, the hospital administration is going to get down on him. Dentists don't have to worry about that. If your dentist does an unnecessary root canal, nothing goes to the path lab - no one's looking... In order to alleviate this current national health care crisis, I predict that one of the first things to go is dental insurance. Health care today is crippling this country. And this is a good example of why." (See recent article from New Hampshire's 'The Union Leader.')

Bob and Ruth Nara fought a good fight but switched gears after the death of their son Bill in several years ago. Being the philosophers that they are, they took a serious look at their own relationship and why it was such a successful one after so many years. One outcome of that observation was a chart referred to as the 'Nara Policy Manual,' an outline of successful vs. unsuccessful relationship traits for yet another book (Bob & Ruth have 15 pages of titles they've written over the years). According to Bob, "We give these out wherever we go, but we want feedback. We're getting good feedback!" To view this chart, download the PDF file at http://mizar5.com/PolicyManual2.pdf

Feel free to put it to good use, but please send your comments on it. I'll share them with the Naras.

As taped discussions and notes get further transcribed and edited, I'll continue posting records of my visit with these fascinating people. We spent an intense 40+ hours with each other last month and I'll do my best to get it all posted in the coming weeks. -Tom Cornwell

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