Chinese nationals seeking top-quality specialist orthodontic care in Auckland are in great hands at Lumino Orthodontists Max + Beresford.
Their expert team of staff includes Chinese speaking specialist orthodontist Dr Jennifer Li and Chinese speaking auxiliary Angela Li. The pair help ensure the practice is ideally placed to cater for the orthodontic and cultural needs of its growing number of Chinese patients.
“I am originally from Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, and speak both Cantonese and Mandarin,” says Jennifer, who joined the long-established Remuera practice just under a year ago.
“Auckland has a large Chinese population who need orthodontic treatment – speaking Chinese and understanding the cultural background makes patients feel more at ease and also helps when discussing children’s orthodontic treatment with parents.”
Jennifer brings a wealth of international expertise to the practice, having completed her Bachelor and Master of Orthodontics at Xi’an Jiaotong University, and her Ph.D. at the esteemed University of Hong Kong. Since then she has conducted post-doctoral research on cleft palates at the University of Michigan, enjoyed a four-year stint lecturing in the Faculty of Dentistry at Sydney University, and collaborated with the Sleep Research Centre of St. George Hospital on ways to treat sleep apnoea. A Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, the highly skilled orthodontist also spent two years as a clinical assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong Orthodontics.
“Through all my years of lecturing, I came across many different philosophies and schools of thought around different orthodontic treatments. This was a great experience not only for clinical practice in a broader range but also as far as being able to provide more treatment options to patients. After working for many years in two of the world’s most renowned clinical institutions I felt like it was time to put all my knowledge into daily practice, so I moved to New Zealand and joined Lumino Orthodontists Max + Beresford.”
Dr Robert Max couldn’t be more delighted.
“Jennifer is a great asset to the practice. She is young, enthusiastic and very caring with an excellent academic background,” he says.
Her compassionate nature is evident throughout her practice – Jennifer is particularly passionate about the work she does to correct deformities during the mixed dentition stage (when baby teeth start getting replaced by permanent teeth), and she liaises closely with leading speech therapists, paediatric dentists, and oral surgeons with cleft palate patients. She also works with interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams to address sleep apnoea in young children and adults, and treat adults missing multiple teeth or needing periodontal attention.
Jennifer adds, “We work closely with great dental and medical specialists to ensure Max + Beresford patients receive the absolute best care and outcomes. It is extremely rewarding to see my patients gain confidence and become happier as a direct result of the work we do.”