Alumni Notes

“It’s really hard to witness people [in the U.S.] who need services from OT and PT—or just medical care in general—but can’t afford it or do not have insurance that covers it. You hear stories, or other students’ experiences on fieldwork. You’ll hear about those who only have three visits with OT—that’s all their insurance covers—when in reality they should see an OT for 10 sessions.

“That would never happen in Norway.”

Different COVID outcomes

Such differences, Tess suggested, account at least in part for the vastly different pandemic outcomes in the U.S. and Norway.

As of this writing, the World Health Organization reports some 950,000 COVID-related deaths in the U.S., and more than 79 million confirmed cases since the pandemic began. In Norway, the number of COVID deaths is around 2,000. Accordingly, the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center gives the U.S. a deaths/100k population ratio of 285.15—ten times Norway’s 28.96 ratio.

“So, normally, as a country, we want to protect everyone,” Tess quipped as if the concept were self-evident. “We don’t mind paying for our neighbor. And so we closed down our country pretty quickly. We were really strict about quarantines, isolation, testing, all these things. The malls closed, restaurants, everything. We just recently started to open back up.”

Didn’t that hurt the economy, I wondered. How did folks pay rent?

“People were basically furloughed, and I think for the first 30 days of that furlough they still received their salaries,” she explained. “And then after a certain amount of time, they would receive 60% of [their salaries], so they were still getting paid although they weren’t working. And Norway paid that bill. As a society. We didn’t like having to shut everything down–some people lost their jobs or lost their house because they couldn’t pay their mortgage. But at the same time, we saw how many lives we were saving.”

In the end, then, Tess acknowledges that it’s hard to dissociate having grown up in a nation with this mindset–caring for others–from her own desire to enter a profession designed to help others in physical, emotional, and social ways.

“You want to provide care to everyone. You want to help everyone that needs help, right? One person can’t do that. But together we can.”

By Brian James Schill

’10s

Lucas Holkup, MD ’16, has joined the team of general surgeons at Lake Region Healthcare in Fergus Falls, Minn.

Luke Roller, MD ’12, has been named Associate Dean of the UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences Southwest Campus in Bismarck.

’00s

The North Dakota Medical Association has announced Joshua Ranum, MD ’08, as the new president of the association. Ranum is a physician with West River Health Services in Hettinger, N.D.

Scott Lawrence, MD ’02, has opened a new practice in Detroit Lakes, Minn. Liberty Health Clinic is part of the Fargo-based Heartland Healthcare Network for independent providers, which contracts with a number of private health insurance companies. Lawrence also is credentialed with other insurance companies to make sure his patients are covered if they opt to follow him to his new clinic.

’90s

Jan Bury, MD ’90, received an honorary doctorate at the University of Mary’s 2021 alumni awards banquet, the highest honor bestowed by the University of Mary. Bury received it as a “witness to resilient joy, model of steadfast compassion in healthcare, and exemplar of professional excellence in medicine.” She retired in August of 2021 after 27 years as an OBGYN and labor and delivery nurse.

Lucas Holkup, MD ’16