Dr. Aaron Unterbrink got through 2020 and 2021 when, as a dentist, he tended to one emergency after another.

Unterbrink had five dental offices at the time in Hidalgo County. His main office was in McAllen with another one in Alton and another in Donna. The frantic pace of those years and the constant medical emergencies he dealt with took a toll. It convinced Unterbrink there had to be a better way to live and work.

“When we were finished with dealing with COVID and all of that, we thought, ‘Why do we have all of these practices?’ We decided to sell everything and simplify our lives,”  Unterbrink said of the decision he and his wife, Brooke, made in late 2021. 

Brooke Unterbrink is a pediatrician by training and education. By 2020 she had given up her own medical practice to help manage the business affairs of her husband’s multi-office locations in Hidalgo County. Brooke felt as her husband did. They needed a change in their lives to have a better work-life balance and devote more time to their two teenage sons.

It all began coming together when the husband-and-wife doctors learned that South Padre Island’s only dentist – Dr. Emma Gavito — was retiring. Living on the Island is something the Unterbrinks had thought of doing given they previously had a residence there. By mid-2022, the transition was complete. Aaron Unterbrink was set up for a dental practice on 4912 Padre Blvd. as SPI’s only dentist. 

“We’re still working but it feels like we’re not working that hard as compared to before,” Brooke Unterbrink said of her husband’s single office dental practice on the Island.

Building A Practice

Aaron and Brooke met in high school while living in Riviera in Kleberg County.

Riviera is the one-traffic-light town on U.S. Highway 77. Its Dairy Queen and two convenience stores are the last places to get a bite and fill up a tank before driving south through the King Ranch and getting to Raymondville. The rural life suited them well as did becoming high school sweethearts.

They would go on to attend Texas A&M University in College Station. It was there they got the direction and motivation to pursue careers in medicine. Brooke’s family roots in McAllen led the young couple to start medical practices in that city in the early 2000s. Their two sons were born there and their respective medical practices flourished in McAllen.

Aaron Unterbrink would grow his practice to include the five offices in Hidalgo County. His office would see 100 or more patients on busy days. It felt good to be successful in building up his practice and business. Brooke Unterbrink would leave her own medical practice to help her husband manage his staff of employees and the business operations of multiple offices. The volume and speed of tending to everything would build through the years and intensify dramatically in the years 2020 and 2021. They reached a point where enough was enough after two decades of dentistry in McAllen.

“We were looking to scale down,” Brooke Unterbrink said. “We’ve simplified our lives.”

Finding Solitude

The pace of life on the Island is such that Dr. Unterbrink sees about 10 patients a day. It’s a patient load that suits him well after the hectic years in McAllen. 

“I’m not burdened with that kind of volume anymore,” he said after wrapping up a recent weekday at his Island office. “I put in a successful 20 years with a bigger practice. It feels great to slow down and have the time to talk to my patients.”

Unterbrink and his family live within walking distance of his SPI office. Brooke Unterbrink has her own presence at the Island office as it is where she homeschools her sons in an enclosed room by the reception area. The Island dental practice is kept reasonably busy during the offseason tourist months with Winter Texans and year-round Island residents. The spring and summer months will see plenty of drop-in patients who have had some sort of accident or experienced an immediate dental issue while vacationing on the Island. 

“We patch them up and get them home,” Aaron Unterbrink said.

Things have worked out as the Unterbrinks envisioned. It feels good to work at a more relaxed pace in a coastal community that’s a great place to live and work.

“We’re together,” Brooke Unterbink said of her family’s new life. “And living on the Island? What can you say? It’s such a nice place to live.”