D E A N ’ S L E T T ER
INCR E DIB L E A CCOM P L I S H M E N T
DESPITE INCREDIBLE ADVERSITY As we come to the close of the 2022 academic (and fiscal)
Despite all of that, our faculty, staff, and students have
year at the end of June, it is traditional to look back – and
not only persevered but excelled. There is no better
forward. As I prepared this column, I looked back at the
demonstration of this than the UND Commencement
column I wrote a year ago. In that report, I commented on
ceremonies that took place on consecutive weekends in early
what an extraordinary year it had been, largely impacted by
May. The first commencement was for the medical student
the pandemic. Now, a year later, it is striking how much is the
Class of 2022, with 69 graduates. These newly minted
same – and how much has changed. The specter of a cloudy
doctors will be joining residencies in North Dakota and
and troubled outlook due to COVID-19 has receded but not
elsewhere. Over forty percent of the class matched into the
gone away, and now has been exacerbated by the war in
primary care specialties of family medicine, internal medicine,
Ukraine, supply chain shortages, inflation, and all the rest.
obstetrics & gynecology, and pediatrics. Almost twenty percent of the cohort is set to enter family medicine, which 4
North Dakota Medicine | Summer 2022
