For Your Health
For Your Health

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

Articles by
joshuawynne

From the Dean: A successful restart to the semester depends on us all

Categories: From the Dean

The recent trend in North Dakota of new COVID-19 cases is troubling, especially given the upcoming start of the fall semester for most UND students – especially undergraduates – next week. The number of active cases in the state has increased rapidly and worryingly in the recent past. Given the plan to restart face-to-face instruction […]

From the Dean: Record-breaking year

Categories: From the Dean

I am delighted to report the achievement of two records that were just finalized this week. Both are related to financial contributions to UND, and both are especially noteworthy in that they were achieved despite the impact of COVID-19 during the last part of the academic year that ended June 30. The first marvelous achievement […]

From the Dean: We are far from helpless

Categories: From the Dean

We are now fewer than three weeks from the official start of the fall semester at UND, although our freshman medical students have been attending class virtually for the past month. And even as we continue to strive to keep our facilities as uncongested as possible from a staff and faculty occupancy standpoint, some employees […]

From the Dean: Rethinking educational models

Categories: From the Dean

This past Tuesday there was a fun virtual event sponsored by Governor Burgum. It was a Virtual Summit on Innovative Education. During the time I was able to be online, I saw that there were about 800 other attendees, presumably from across the state. The Governor mentioned that there were over 1,300 registrants in all. […]

From the Dean: Getting ready for students’ return amid COVID-19

Categories: From the Dean

The virtual events we held last Friday for the incoming medical student Class of 2024 and their families went very well indeed by all accounts. As is my traditional role, I oversaw the Friday case wrap-up where the entire class “meets” (this year virtually) with the patient whose case history they have been learning from […]

From the Dean: The 100th percentile

Categories: From the Dean

As I’ve mentioned before, the medical students in the Class of 2024 began their studies with us this week. I welcomed them to the UND SMHS on Monday. But unlike in prior years, the meeting was not in person—it was virtual. And rather than discussing the moral imperatives of being a physician as I have […]

From the Dean: Return-to-work and other COVID-19 updates

Categories: From the Dean

I suspect that you, like me, have periods of concern and worry regarding the current pandemic and especially how it might impact the future. I was, quite frankly, struggling a bit emotionally earlier in the week, especially after yet again having to interact over the weekend with our five grandkids virtually rather than in person. […]

From the Dean: Here comes the Class of 2024!

Categories: From the Dean

As I mentioned in this column last week, I “attended” the latest triannual meeting of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) for two days earlier this week. We reviewed almost three dozen accreditation surveys, status reports and change notifications (for example, regarding class size) from medical schools across the U.S. What was different, of […]

From the Dean: “Best places to practice”

Categories: From the Dean

Last year, I mentioned an annual survey of the attractiveness of various physician practice locations around the U.S. conducted and reported by Medscape, a commercial online portal for physicians and other health professionals. The survey for 2020 was just released (“2020 Best and Worst Places to Practice”). It ranks all of the states in the […]

From the Dean: No going back

Categories: From the Dean

The growth of virtual rather than face-to-face communications and interactions occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic continues at a dizzying pace. Recently I was talking with the developer of a software product that is able to analyze millions of patient records and use artificial intelligence to develop improved patient management strategies. He recounted a recent event […]

From the Dean: From one role to another

Categories: From the Dean

Sunday marks my last day as interim president of UND, as Andy Armacost officially takes over on Monday, June 1, 2020. Susan and I have been busy packing up our belongings in University House prior to our move out next week, and our Fargo home will be chock full of favorite items we had up […]

From the Dean: How to honor 2020 grads?

Categories: From the Dean

This past Wednesday night, I had a chance to watch a virtual national celebration produced by the American Medical Association to honor the roughly 30,000 medical students nationwide who have or will be graduating this spring. Actors who have portrayed doctors on TV and in movies, along with other notable physicians and celebrities, joined the […]

From the Dean: Congratulations graduates!

Categories: From the Dean

As I mentioned in last week’s column, this weekend marks graduation for our senior class of medical and health sciences students. All together, more than 320 UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences students will receive their degrees in virtual Commencement ceremonies that get underway at 10 a.m. tomorrow. I have recorded on video several […]

From the Dean: More on the budget picture

Categories: From the Dean

I’m now in the last few weeks of my interim presidency at UND. Andy Armacost takes over officially on June 1, 2020, but as you probably know, we have been working together on the presidential transition since January. In view of the pandemic, having both of us working together during these trying times has been […]

From the Dean: On COVID testing

Categories: From the Dean

As we move into May, the COVID-19 pandemic continues, although many parts of the country now seem to be on the descending limb of at least the initial infection curve. To what extent, and how severe, recurrent waves of outbreak will occur still remains unclear. But it seems likely that recurrent episodes of infection can […]