Meet the Conductor

Her gentle face is one of the first people see when they walk into the offices of Pure North.

“Everyone is greeted with a smile,” says Joanna Xayarath. “We are the first and last point of contact, and we treat all with the same level of respect, kindness and compassion.”

Every day, Pure North’s office manager joins her team of front line staff at the main reception desk. Their job is to ensure participants receive a level of care and attention that matches that of the organization’s health care professionals.

“Everyone at Pure North meshes so well together,” says the 37-year-old. “I’m so proud to be able to contribute.”

Xayarath and her team do much more than provide a warm welcome and farewell. They work with Pure North’s naturopathic doctors, nurse practitioners and nurses and its dental clinic to ensure necessary appointments are booked, follow-ups at¬tended to and participants’ questions and concerns immediately answered.

“Every participant is different,” Xayarath says.

“We focus on providing highly personalized care, like you see in everything Pure North does.”

She credits her innate professionalism and compassion to her parents. “My parents were married in a refugee camp,” she says of mom Oi and dad Nouchieng, who fled war-torn Laos in the 1970s. They made a new life in Canada through hard work, passing those values onto Xayarath and her siblings.

“I think about the Didsbury family who sponsored my parents to come to Canada,” she says, “and I’m forever grateful for them making my life possible.”

Like everyone else who joins the Pure North team, in 2014 Xayarath also became a Pure North participant.

“I’d suffered from migraines for years,” says the mom of a 15-year-old son. After getting a high-definition, cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) scan at the Pure North dental clinic, she learned her problem stemmed from a root canal done when she was 16.

“[The clinic] pulled my tooth and I started getting ozone injections,” she says, adding she’s thankful for the high-tech CBCT machine. It produces 3D images of teeth, soft tissues, nerve pathways and bone in a single scan and uses far less radiation than a traditional X-ray. (See sidebar: “What’s at the root of that headache?”)

“I don’t suffer from migraines anymore.”

Xayarath recently played a role in the development of a new, much more efficient booking system and processes for tracking clients’ progress.

“We all work together so well at Pure North, because we have the same goal. And that goal is to help people achieve their best health.”

Kudos for Kindness

Joanne Taylor is passionate about the benefits of supplementation and having a program tailored to her health needs.

What’s also kept the Pure North participant coming back for eight years is the kindness and compassion at the not-for-profit’s heart.

“When you walk into Pure North, you know you’re not just a number,” says Taylor. “It is a caring, progressive organization that helps you to be the best you can be.”

Taylor says office manager Joanna Xayarath is the “face” of Pure North. “Joanna leads the welcoming branch. You’re immediately put at ease. [It’s] like a second home.”

She believes Xayarath is “a reflection of the caring attitude Pure North has” for all the people who come through their doors. “We are fortunate Pure North is here for us.”