Brendan McDonald and Briana Lukinchuk have moved home with their two young children to start Boreal Audiology & Hearing Services – a state-of-the-art clinic that offers family-friendly, personalized services to the people of Dryden.

Born and raised in Dryden, the “high school sweethearts” moved away, initially to Ottawa, for education and work opportunities. McDonald studied audiology and eventually earned an AuD. Lukinchuk became a Communication Disorders Assistant, which provides support for audiologists and speech-language pathologists.

McDonald honed his skills and gained experience working with a top surgeon in Edmonton “who treated us like family,” he says. Both of their kids were born there before they moved the family to Manitoba, and McDonald took a job working as an audiologist with children and adults at a facility for specialists, the Health Sciences Centre (HSC) Winnipeg. 

The pull home was too strong, though, and they moved back to Dryden last spring, for personal and professional reasons.

“I’ve had that longing to get back and be a part of the community, be part of the area,” says McDonald. “There’s an opportunity here to not only just be close to family, but also offer something to the area that hasn’t been here.”

The new clinic at Golden Mile Plaza on Government Street will host an open house on October 13. Boreal Audiology offers a full range of services, including hearing tests, hearing aid consultations, earwax cleaning, Tinnitus Management and Custom Hearing protection. 

The clinic is locally owned, so they can customize services and offer a variety of brand choices for hearing aid products, unlike franchises often bound by the offerings of the parent company.

“Coming in as the independent, we’re hoping to be more flexible,” he says. “We’re hoping to position ourselves by offering a wider range of hearing products, and a wider range of services.”

Boreal Audiology will serve mainly patients in the Dryden area, but they also hope to eventually provide outreach in the form of a tele-audiology practice to underserved communities.

“There’s no clinic in Red Lake,” he says. “There’s no clinic in Sioux Lookout that operates on a full-time basis, so there’s still lots of small communities that have barriers to accessing services.”

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No matter what form the service takes, McDonald and Lukinchuk say it will be highly personalized and welcoming. They took great care in designing their new space, which includes features like a larger sound booth that makes children and adults feel less cramped and more comfortable while undergoing testing.

“We put a lot of our own blood, sweat and tears into it,” says McDonald. “We had our little daughter helping us paint the trim for the clinic. We brought the kids into it, telling them, it’s not mom and dad’s clinic. It’s our family’s clinic.”

“I like to have the patient come in and feel at ease, feel they can relate to me as a professional and as a business owner. I want them to say, ‘I feel welcome here. I know this is a safe space, this is a comfortable space.’ That should translate to them having a better experience and a better outcome for what they’ve come in [to have treated].”

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Lukinchuk agrees, and she wants patients to know they care about their health generally and not just their hearing needs.

“I’m the first point of contact that people will have, so I’m hoping it comes through that we’re welcoming, and people can be forthcoming with any issues that they’re having,” says Lukinchuk. “It’s all-encompassing sometimes. Sometimes it takes someone else to say, this is great that you’re bringing this to me, you need to bring it to your GP, and see if you can get that sorted or a counsellor or whomever you have available to you.”

McDonald and Lukinchuk are thrilled to be home, raising their family and building a business that will be part of the community fabric for decades to come.

“We can be a part of the community, we can offer our services, everything we’ve gone out and done over the last decade or more through our education and our work experience. We’re back and we’ve got a lot to offer that the Dryden area needs.”

To learn more about Boreal Audiology & Hearing Services or to book an appointment, call 807-700-5545 or visit: https://www.hearboreal.ca/

The open house will take place Thursday, October 13, from 2-6 pm at 539 Government Street at Golden Mile Plaza. All are welcome.