Thomas the truckstop dentist

A special to CNN by author Bob Greene celebrated the ingenuity of one Dr. Thomas Roemer, a dentist formerly in private practice in Davenport, Iowa. Roemer, Greene wrote, has managed to survive the downturn and the attendant downward pressure of dental demand through what Greene dubs “individual inventiveness and ingenuity.” Roemer’s dental innovation was to set up practice in the mammoth Iowa 80 truckstop (home of the Walcott Truckers Jamboree, scheduled this year for July 9-10), providing him a sort of captive audience of, well, you. Six-month cleanings are rare, Roemer told Greene. “You have people walking in holding their jaws in pain. Treatment is not optional – they need to see a dentist, and they need to see me now.”…