D E A N ’ S L E T T ER
THE IMMEASURABLE VALUE OF MENTORSHIP We now are about a half-year into the COVID-19 pandemic,
now are able to reintroduce our students into the clinical
and it would appear that we have a good number of months
environment in large measure.
yet to go, if not more—with a still uncertain future. As I have written elsewhere, we have made many adjustments in our usual routine at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences. The School’s website (med.UND.edu/about/covid. html) includes a rather extensive summary of the ways that the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting various school functions, and how were are adjusting and adapting to the associated challenges and issues.
are educating our medical students is the feedback that we get each year from a questionnaire distributed to graduating seniors just before they depart for their residency training. The questionnaire is a standardized one distributed by the AAMC to all graduating medical students in the U.S. The feedback that we get from our own students is compared by the AAMC with collated national data. We just got our 2020
As you know, all non-essential UND personnel had been
results back, and in general we were quite pleased with the
working remotely during the initial phase of the pandemic,
feedback. However, one area where we did not fare well is
although the State of North Dakota’s Smart Restart initiative
when our students are asked about their satisfaction with the
has allowed us to modify this requirement going forward. Face-
career counseling they have received. It turns out that students
to-face on-campus education has restarted as of late August,
from across the country tend to be relatively unhappy with this
but we are ready to pivot away from an on-campus experience
aspect of their medical school experience, but our students are
as circumstances may dictate in the future. We remain in close
particularly dissatisfied. We have instituted a variety of actions
contact with Governor Burgum’s office, the North Dakota
to help address this shortcoming, but we could use your help.
Department of Health, local public health entities, and city leaders regarding how developments in Grand Forks and communities across the state housing SMHS faculty, staff, and students are being impacted by the evolving pandemic.
Might you be willing (if you are a physician or have other training and experiences that are relevant) to volunteer to chat with a student (presumably virtually) about career options and tradeoffs? Students value such advice and mentorship
We shifted our preclinical educational paradigm for medical
tremendously, and we would be incredibly grateful if you
and health sciences students to deliver content electronically,
consider helping our students in this way. If so, please visit
rather than asking students to come to class from March
med.UND.edu/student-affairs-admissions/mentor to enter
through early August. That said, we have been carefully
your contact information and your clinical practice area. Or,
restarting face-to-face instruction. Faculty and students
consider participating in the School’s Adopt-A-Med-Student
have been flexible and creative, and this effort has been very
program, which is meant to offer first-year students a (perhaps
successful so far.
more informal) mentoring experience. We would especially
In the clinical arena, consistent with strong recommendations from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), we removed our medical students from the health care delivery system for the initial several months of the pandemic to reduce utilization of personal protective equipment, provided opportunities for students to train specifically for this clinical environment, and allowed time for deliberation and planning. Likewise, all health sciences students who were on clinical rotations were temporarily pulled from the clinics. But we 4
One of the barometers that we use to judge how effectively we
North Dakota Medicine Fall 2020
appreciate volunteers who practice in specialty areas that are less well-represented (that is, those other than primary care fields such as internal medicine, general surgery, general pediatrics, and family medicine). But we would welcome any and all to sign up. After all, we are so fortunate that so many of the physicians practicing in North Dakota have volunteered to be clinical faculty members at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences. Of the roughly 1,800 practicing physicians in the state, more than 1,300 of you are UND clinical (voluntary)
