For Your Health
For Your Health

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

From the Dean: Our award-winning students and faculty

This has been an exciting week of recognition for a number of high-performing students and faculty at the School. I’ve often said that it’s really the people that make schools and programs great, beyond “just” great facilities and support services like information technology, dining services, human resources, and maintenance services. Well, we have outstanding faculty, staff, and students, that’s for sure!

To start, consider the annual Service Learning Day that took place this past Monday. Organized by Maddie Klein, a member of the medical student Class of 2024, the day was highlighted by an evening event where medical students from every class presented on a recent service learning project in which they participated. Each project involved giving back to people in the community, whether by helping disabled people get up on skis or providing virtual crisis counseling for youngsters. Three prizes were awarded by the judges who were both faculty and student representatives. The winners and their projects were as follows:

  • First place: Margarita Consing, MS4 – “UND SMHS Gives Back: A Free Screening for the Community.”
  • Most creative: Lauren Johnson MS2, Holly Mitzel MS2, Erin Eidsness MS3, and Allison Valerius MS3 – “Root to Rise: Supporting Underserved Populations in the Healthcare Field.”
  • Most impactful: Rebecca Rist, MS1 – “24/7 Crisis Counseling: We’re here for you and we want to hear from you.”

The following day, the 2022 Sophomore Awards ceremony was held for the medical student Class of 2024 as well. Various awards were presented by faculty members to members of the class who went above and beyond in their contributions in various realms. In my introductory remarks, I indicated that I felt that every student in the class deserved an award for persevering through the pandemic and the major curricular change that we recently implemented. Those specifically honored and the awards they received are as follows:

Awards from the North Dakota Medical Association

  • Group Leadership and Professionalism Award – Dakota Snustad
  • Peer Teaching Award – Emily Hao
  • Integration of Basic Science and Clinical Application Award – Tim Colwell
  • The DeBoer Memorial Award – Tim Colwell
  • Philip H. Woutat Memorial Scholarship Award – Emily Hao
  • William Eugene Cornatzer Award – Stephanie Ziegler
  • James Kelleher Award – Nathaniel Albrecht

Service Award

  • Kevin Monk Award – Megan Corn

The students then turned the table and recognized three faculty members for their truly outstanding contributions to medical student education with three Outstanding Teacher Awards. The awardees really are amazing, and all are repeat winners! For this year, faculty winners include:

  • Portrait Award – Patrick Carr
  • Golden Apple Award – Sophomore class – Walter Kemp
  • Golden Apple Award – Freshman class – Jane Dunlevy

Finally, it’s a pleasure to recognize the outstanding contributions of another faculty member. Dr. Cindy Flom-Meland, professor and chair of the Department of Physical Therapy, and her co-authors were awarded the Stanford Award by the editorial board of the Journal of Physical Therapy Education. The award recognizes the authors of a manuscript containing the most influential educational ideas published in the journal for that academic year.

What an amazing group of students and faculty! Congratulations to all!

Joshua Wynne, MD, MBA, MPH
Vice President for Health Affairs, UND
Dean, UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences