$re = '/\b[rn](?=[A-Z0-9 ])/m';
$str = 'r n r n r nFamily Medical History new r n r n r r r Roger nRobert n nDawson n49 nyears old , right shoulder';
$subst = " ";
$result = preg_replace($re, $subst, $str);
echo "The result of the substitution is ".$result;
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php