The new academic year is off to an excellent start for the Cholakis Dental Group: Kids Dental Outreach Program.
More than 3,000 children from 19 Winnipeg School Division schools have been screened. This are two more schools than last year, and the children are now starting to arrive at the clinic on Fridays for treatment.
“It’s been going really well,” said Dr. Jim Ksionzyk, assistant professor and director of undergraduate pediatric dentistry at the Dr. Gerald Niznick College of Dentistry.
“We’ve been rebuilding for the last couple of years, and we’ve been trying to get the numbers up. We’re expanding within the Winnipeg School Division, and there is interest from other school divisions.”
New program sponsors – the Dr. Alfred E. Deacon Medical Research Foundation and the Cholakis Dental Group – joined in April, and it’s been going great, Ksionzyk said.
“It has allowed us to continue to provide care to hundreds of children each year, and I’m thankful for their support,” he said.
Dr. Gurpreet Mauli, a pediatrics fellow last year, joined the program part-time, and there are plans to start a new joint clinic between the pediatrics and orthodontics programs.
“We’ll be doing interceptive orthodontics, so we will be treating children that don’t need braces now but hopefully we can do things for them to stop them from needing braces,” Ksionzyk said.
They have started finding patients and they will be treated in the regular clinic until the joint clinic is launched a year from now, Ksionzyk said.