For Your Health
For Your Health

News from the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences

Graduation Festivities

Please join us for the 2019 MD Commencement activities scheduled for Sunday, May 12, in Grand Forks. The School will confer Doctor of Medicine (MD) degrees to 73 graduating medical students at 2 p.m. that day in the Chester Fritz Auditorium on the UND campus in Grand Forks. The graduating students have completed four years of medical education to earn their Doctor of Medicine, beginning with two years of instruction on the UND campus in Grand Forks followed by two years of training with practicing physicians who volunteer to serve as their teachers in hospitals and clinics throughout North Dakota. The ceremony’s keynote address, “An educator to his students: thank you for one last chance to teach you,” will be delivered by Walter Kemp, MD, PhD, an associate professor in the SMHS Department of Pathology.

The Commencement schedule is as follows:

  • 10:30 a.m.—Awards brunch: Alerus Center (1200 42nd Street S., Grand Forks, ND). Tickets are $15 each and can be purchased by calling the Dean’s Office (701.777.2516) or e-mailing Jeanette Gratton.
  • 2:00 p.m.—Commencement Ceremony: Chester Fritz Auditorium, 3475 University Avenue, Grand Forks.

If you have any questions regarding the awards brunch or commencement ceremony, please contact Jeanette Gratton (701.777.2312 or jeanette.gratton@med.und.edu).

Health Sciences Graduates
In addition to the new medical doctors graduating on Sunday, May 12, the School will see more than 230 students from its graduate and professional health sciences programs walk across the Alerus Center stage at the UND Commencement on Saturday, May 11. The Doctoral and Master’s Degree Ceremony begins at 9 a.m. and the Undergraduate Degree Ceremony begins at 1:30 p.m.

Representing the School at UND’s Spring Commencement Saturday will be students from not only the SMHS graduate program in the Biomedical Sciences (3), but those from its professional and undergraduate programs in Medical Laboratory Science (83), Occupational Therapy (52), Physical Therapy (52), Physician Assistant Studies (32), Master of Public Health (6), and Athletic Training (9).

Over the past 50 years, the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences has graduated nearly 10,000 professionals working in the health sciences in North Dakota and around the country.