Kamsack residents had an opportunity to come out and enjoy cookies and refreshments at the Kamsack Senior Centre on Sunday and meet the new dentist who will be opening a full-service dental practice in the Assiniboine Valley Medical Clinic.
Dr. Michael Mah, his fiancée Vivi Ho and office manager Shandie Leis were on hand to meet residents of Kamsack and area at a meet and greet event organized by the Assiniboine Valley Health and Wellness Foundation on September 9.
Mayor Nancy Brunt, a member of the Foundation, was there to greet the new dentist, Dr. Michael Mah, and his fiancée Vivi Ho, both of Red Deer, Ab., and Shandie Leis of the Togo area who will be the new office manager for the dental office to be located in the Assiniboine Valley Medical Clinic.
“I want to say that the community and Town of Kamsack have been great in supporting the establishment of a dental clinic in the current medical clinic building, and I and my team are looking forward to working with this community,” Mah said.
“It is my intention to provide a wide range of dental services in the new dental practice which includes dental surgery, implants, orthodontics and denture fabrication as well as regular extractions, fillings and emergency dental procedures, all to be provided by general dentists.
“We expect to be operational by November 1 and expect to be taking bookings by mid-October.
“There will be one full-time dentist on staff, Dr. Marc, plus three other dentists on the team, one of whom is myself, who will provide dental procedures.
“We have been made to feel most welcome in this community and we feel it’s very important that we fulfill our goal to provide a family-oriented community practice with the kind of service where people feel comfortable when they come to our clinic for dental treatment.”
“I already feel very much at home in Kamsack,” said Vivi Ho who is Mah’s fiancée. “I am a big-city girl, but when I arrived here everyone made me feel welcome and I feel like I want to stay.”
Ho has been in Canada for only a year-and-a half, having come to Calgary from Viet Nam to be with he fiancée.
“I worked as a journalist in Viet Nam, and have been working hard to improve my knowledge of the English language since coming to Canada,” she said.
Mah was born in Toronto, but his family moved to Red Deer when he was only two years old. “I consider myself a small-town prairie boy,” he said.
Mah’s grandfather began a family-run business years ago, and because of this Mah feels that good customer service is his number one priority.
“I was educated and trained in Vancouver, B.C., New York and Harvard, having completed externships in the U.S., but will always cherish my small-town roots, so am very pleased to be setting up a practice in a rural Saskatchewan community,” he said.
Shandie Leis will be the office manager of the new dental practice. She lives with her husband, Kyle Leis, and their two children on a farm between Runnymede and Togo.
Having grown up in Manitoba, near Saskatchewan, she received her training in The Pas at UCN (University College North) and has been a dental assistant since 2009.
