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From the Dean

This year we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Center for Rural Health (CRH) at the UND SMHS. Since its beginning in 1980 with one employee—Dr. Kevin Fickenscher, its founding director—the CRH has grown to become a major force for good in rural health care delivery in North Dakota in particular, […]

Although the next session of the North Dakota Legislative Assembly (the biannual meeting of the Legislature) is fewer than 11 months away (with a scheduled start date of Jan. 5, 2021), UND and the UND SMHS are already in the preparatory stages of budget planning for the next biennium. As you probably know, North Dakota […]

You may have read an email earlier this week and/or the Tuesday news release announcing that Dr. Joy Dorscher, the School’s associate dean of Student Affairs & Admissions, has decided to retire as of February 19, 2020. Dr. Dorscher has served the School with energy and commitment since May 2012. During her tenure, she devoted […]

This past Monday was the fourth annual National Women Physicians Day. My wife Susan and many of her colleagues attended a conference that evening to honor women in medicine. The day celebrates the birth of Dr. Elisabeth Blackwell, the first female medical doctor in the United States, who was born on Feb. 3, 1849. Today, […]

There were two big events this week, both of which have relevance for our School. The first was that North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum chose to give the annual State of the State address on the UND campus. This was only the second time that a North Dakota governor has given this address on a […]

This past Wednesday, I was pleased to attend an event at the UND Alumni Association & Foundation’s Gorecki Alumni Center in celebration of the life and contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The event—called the Dream in Action—was cosponsored by UND and the City of Grand Forks. Coordinated by UND’s Office of Diversity & […]

As we welcome the new academic year and many of our students back to campus next week, I hope that you will join me in also welcoming Minnie Faith Kalyanasundaram, M.D., to campus as a new associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and director of the Academic Success Program (ASP). Dr. […]

As we welcome 2020 and look forward to the new year, we should pause for a moment to send our best wishes to Hunter Pinke, a UND student athlete on the football team who suffered a severe spinal injury while skiing in Colorado, and to remember two members of the extended UND family whom we […]

With UND 2019 Winter Commencement activities concluding this afternoon, the first semester of the 2020 academic year is winding down. Yesterday we held commencement for students receiving professional and graduate degrees, and later this afternoon we will have two ceremonies to send off those receiving undergraduate degrees, including students from the School of Medicine & […]

Susan and I visited the Northwest (Minot) campus yesterday for the last holiday party of the season, and it was a lot of fun. As I’ve mentioned before, the School hosts these get-togethers on all three of our regional campuses in Minot, Fargo, and Bismarck, along with one on the central campus in Grand Forks. […]