After graduating from Colby, Robinson attended Harvard Medical School. He graduated in the top 10% of his class. He had always wanted to become a physician since he was a child and travel to China as a missionary. His father was a minister in the Congregational Church and exposed him to missionaries, some of whom had travelled to China and told him of the work to be done there. After graduation he then worked as a junior medical officer at the Veteran’s Hospital where he met his wife, OIga Olsen. In 1923, the two eloped in the living room of Olga’s parents home. Only a week later, Olga went back to work at the Veteran’s Hospital and Robinson went to Hartford to intern at the Hartford Hospital.
The two kept in touch through telephone and letters, seeing each other occasionally when they could. Together they contacted the American Board Headquarters and expressed their desire to become missionaries. In the spring of 1925, both Robinson and Olga were accepted to become missionaries to Lintsing in Northern China with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).
Together they arrived in Tianjin on July 20th, 1925, and travelled to Beidaihe to wait until the Beijing Language School started. They quickly travelled to Beijing soon after as Olga was pregnant and due to deliver soon and there were not adequate hospitals in Beidaihe. They both started learning Chinese when the Beijing Language School opened in the fall. They were taught using a novel technique at the time, immersive learning, where the teachers were not allowed to speak any English. After passing their exams in June of 1926, they returned to Beidaihe and stayed there until August when they travelled to Lintsing
Harvard in 1922