Wednesday, October 7, 2020 Vol. 43, No. 41
– SINCE 1913! –
Your LOCAL Paper!
$1 (includes GST)
New doctor returning to her roots Patricia Harcourt Editor
Although Viking’s latest addition to the local medical staff is technically “new,” as someone who grew up in the Kinsella area she is familiar to many. Dr. Kate Overbo recently joined the Viking Medical Clinic after being away for 13 years getting the education and experience to become a family physician. Overbo joined the family practice in Viking after serving two rural locum stints here last fall and again this spring. “I did the locums and really enjoyed it in Viking,” she said. It was around that time one doctor had departed and it was learned a second would soon be leaving. So Overbo was able to consider joining the practice at that time. Her decision was a resounding yes. The clinic now has two new doctors replacing the two who left this year. Dr. Neels Niemand arrived last spring in Canada from South Africa and joined the clinic in May. Overbo joined the practice on August 31 which means the clinic now has a full complement of four doctors, including Dr. Marna Hagen and Dr. Hermanus Potgieter. She admits her parents, Fay and Kelly Overbo, are pleased she is practicing in her home area. Medicine runs in the family with her sister Kimberly working as a pharmacist. “They just want me to be happy,” she said, adding she appreciates the support of the local community as well. And she is known to many locally, having grown up in Kinsella and attended Viking School. But there is still enough of a separation in time
and space to allow her to come back and serve people in a professional capacity. “Being gone 13 years helped a lot,” she said, adding she also felt that “having the background and knowledge of the community is good.” In fact, Overbo credits a program she participated in during her high school years for drawing her into the medical profession in the first place. She worked summers as a health care aide at the Viking hospital. It was a provincial initiative designed to get students interested in health care in general. And for Overbo, it worked. She spent four summers at the hospital working in all departments, “from top to bottom” as she described it, even seeing the birth of babies. “It was an opportunity as a student that most people don’t get to see,” she said. The die was cast for her future. “It was a good exposure,” she said, “I got to see what doctors do.” After graduating high school in 2007 with many academic accolades to her credit, she went on to get a four-year Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Alberta. This was followed up by four years in medical school at the U of A and another two years of residency in family medicine in Red Deer. She spent the next three years doing rural locum work around the province, including stints in Camrose, High Level, Peace River, Rocky Mountain House, Bonnyville, Lacombe, Innisfail, and others along the way. But Viking’s locum from October to December last year left a lasting impression that this might be the place where she would want to hang her shingle to stay.
Dr. Kate Overbo, who grew up in the Kinsella/Viking area, has returned to her home area to practice family medicine at the Viking Medical Clinic. “I want to provide a safe environment for patients to share their concerns,” she explains, in her patients’ care sheet. “My goal is to provide holistic care; I welcome you to seek all types of care you need for your health and will be honest when certain modalities are outside my expertise.” As the other doctors at the clinic
could attest, she will have a busy rural practice including seeing patients at a clinic in Irma once a month. Although the clinic in Viking is now seeing patients in-person, Overbo said that phone visits, started last spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, can continue as well for now.