HOF142: HOANG, Dinh Tri

Hoang Dinh Tri graduated in 1974 from the Dental Medicine University of Saigon in Vietnam. Due to the ongoing war, he was assigned to the military and served there as a dentist until South Vietnam fell in April 30, 1975.
The Vietcong sent him to a re-education camp in the jungle, where he was expected to clear mines from the fields and prepare the land for cultivation. Upon his release more than two years later, Hoang was forced to provide dental services at a number of hospitals, but under such unbearable conditions and scrutiny that he decided to leave the country.
Arriving in Lethbridge, Alberta, in 1980 after a brief stay at the Pulau Bidong Refugee Camp in Malaysia, Hoang worked as a dishwasher. Later, he convinced a local dentist to give him a chance to work at a dental laboratory to gain experience in Canadian dentistry. One year later, he moved to Montreal, Quebec, where he studied for a year at the University of Montreal with a number of other Vietnamese-born dental trainees to pass the National Dental Examination and obtain a licence to practice in Canada.
He then settled in Edmonton, Alberta, where he has been managing his own dental practice since 1983, and volunteering extensively for the Vietnamese community in Edmonton, Alberta.