Dr. Kou Vang is not your typical dentist. Unless your dentist grew up in a small village in eastern Laos and was recruited by the CIA at age 15 to call in air strikes on North Vietnamese Army positions. Or was captured by the Vietcong and forced to consume bugs and foul-smelling water to survive. Or watched three of his fellow POWs get blown up by land mines. Or was left behind during the evacuation of American troops in 1975, escaped into the jungle, then walked and swam his way to Thailand to join his family in a refugee camp.
After a few months in that camp, Vang, his wife, Song, and their two children were on their way to the U.S., sponsored by a Lutheran church in Illinois. After 10 years, Vang and his growing family of eight moved to Minnesota, where most of his 13 surviving siblings now reside. Vang earned his GED, then enrolled at Lakewood Community College in White Bear Lake. Seeing dentistry as an effective way to help his people, many of whom live near him in St. Paul, Vang completed a pre-dental degree at the University of Minnesota, then enrolled in the U's School of Dentistry.
Vang graduated at age 40, served two years of residency, then opened up Vang Dental Clinic in Frogtown in 1998. "I want to be close to the low-income people," he says. "I like to serve the people who are underserved. Seventy percent of my patients are Hmong, and many of them have never been to a dentist before. The other 30 percent are mostly Somalian, and the rest are mostly Latino, Caucasian, Lao, Thai, or African American."
His hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but Vang routinely stays until 9 or 10 at night, because many of his patients stop by on their way home from work. "In their culture, they usually don't go to the dentist until they're really sick," Vang explains. "They just walk in and say 'I cannot go to sleep tonight.' I feel good because I'm helping these patients. If I don't help them, I cannot go to sleep; I'd be thinking of the patient all night long." Two-thirds of his patients have insurance provided by Minnesota Care and Minnesota Healthcare programs. "I have never turned anybody down, no matter what they can or cannot pay," he says. "If people need your help, you help."
Vang recently secured private financing to purchase and rehab the old Saxon Ford property on University Avenue, two blocks away from his current location. He plans to move into the new building by February, expanding his practice by bringing in another dentist and more assistants to join his wife, daughter, and daughter-in-law. He has verbal leasing commitments from other health-related practices, including a pharmacy, a vision clinic, a chiropractic clinic, and a podiatrist.
"I wanted to have a bigger place so I can accommodate more people," Vang observes. "Many of my patients come to the clinic by bus or get dropped off. If they see a dentist or a physician who prescribes medication, they need to go home and find more transportation to come back later. With the new clinic, they will now be able to have all their health care needs addressed in one trip."
