This past Monday we held our annual Sophomore Awards celebration for medical students. This year’s event was virtual due to the pandemic, but the ceremony also was special because, as I mentioned to the Year 2 students in my opening comments, all of the students deserve awards for their perseveranceRead More

The North Dakota Legislative Assembly (aka Legislature) probably has about a month more to run for this biennium. Various bills that are relevant to the School are making their way through the process, and none is more important than SB 2003 (the funding bill for the School and the higherRead More

Today is Match Day for our senior medical students! At 11 a.m. today (12 p.m. Eastern), medical students from around the country (including those at the UND SMHS) learn where they will be spending the next three to five (or more) years as part of their post-MD residency. Hosted byRead More

Today marks one year since the pandemic really started in earnest for Susan and me. On that Friday we retreated to our home and realized that our life – and that of our family, friends, neighbors, and literally billions of others – was about to change in profound ways. YouRead More

We now have reached the “cross-over” phase of the North Dakota legislative session where bills that originated in one chamber are passed over to the other chamber for consideration. In the case of the funding bill for the UND SMHS that is contained in the higher education budget (SB 2003),Read More

These past two weeks have reminded me just how outstanding the faculty and staff that we’ve put in place at your UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences truly are. I sometimes joke that I can’t keep up with all the awards and other honors our team members regularly receiveRead More

I ended my column last week with congratulations to Dr. Don Warne, associate dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Director of UND’s Indians into Medicine (INMED) and Public Health programs, for his selection as a member of the inaugural Explorers 50 class of the Explorers Club, an international multidisciplinaryRead More

This past Monday we had our first virtual Faculty Assembly during which I traditionally deliver the “State of the School” address, and Faculty Council Chair David Relling presents the various committee reports to the UND SMHS faculty and others in attendance. As it turns out, one of the benefits ofRead More

The School’s presentation to the North Dakota Legislature’s Senate Appropriations Committee this past Monday went well. Dave Molmen, CEO of Altru Health System and the chair of the UND SMHS Advisory Council and I presented virtually, utilizing the slides available here. We fielded a few insightful questions from committee members,Read More

This past year has been a trying one on many levels. The impact of the pandemic has been enormous of course. The suffering of many has been substantial, and the losses heart-wrenching. So, too, is the recent passing of Lonnie Laffen, former North Dakota senator and a principal at JLGRead More

As the semester winds down, SARS-CoV-2 cases trend downward as well in North Dakota and at UND. As has been widely reported, we’ve seen a rather dramatic recent decline in cases, test positivity rate, and hospitalizations. All of this mainly can be attributed to better attention to good public healthRead More

The School held its first-ever virtual Holiday Gathering last night. Ordinarily, we coordinate December celebrations on each of our four campuses as well as a luncheon get-together that we hold on the second floor of the Grand Forks building. But because of the pandemic, we consolidated all five parties intoRead More

One of the very positive things we have going on at the School is outstanding leadership of our student leaders. Here’s one example: as required by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME, the accrediting body for U.S. medical schools that I’ve mentioned before), the students are conducting a surveyRead More

The theme of this week’s column is “resilience and excellence under pressure.” First, consider the just-released report summarizing the School’s research funding for the first quarter (July through September) of our fiscal year. Keep in mind that our researchers finished the last academic year with the largest amount of fundedRead More

This has been a quiet week, all things considered, especially since UND was closed on Wednesday in recognition of Veterans Day. On Tuesday I sent an email to all School faculty, staff and students to remind them about the holiday and to ask them to pause on that day “toRead More