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From the Dean

This week has been especially busy across campus with Homecoming 2022 activities. The UND Alumni Association and Foundation (UND AAF) typically holds its fall board meeting during Homecoming week, and this year is no exception. The Board (of which I am an ex officio member) met yesterday and is meeting again today. The board meeting […]

As you may remember from prior columns, a few years ago I was asked by Gov. Doug Burgum to head up a working group charged with developing a Strategic Plan for Health for the state of North Dakota, with the goal of making North Dakotans the healthiest people in the country. As Chief Health Strategist […]

As I’ve mentioned previously, over the past few months the School has had the opportunity to hold a number of White Coat ceremonies – some delayed due to the pandemic– for members of several medical and health sciences classes. As you may know, the White Coat ceremony was conceptualized to remind medical students of the […]

Two noteworthy events directly related to the UND SMHS took place yesterday. The first was a curriculum retreat to review the medical student curriculum and assess how optimally it is preparing the future doctors we are educating. This year’s meeting was especially important since we are in the midst of full implementation of the major […]

The UND SMHS family shared in lamenting the unsettling news that some 250 boxes containing the remains of Indigenous ancestors and other sacred objects have been located on the UND campus in Grand Forks. President Armacost spoke about the news on Wednesday and was sincere in his apologies on behalf of the entire UND community. […]

There were three noteworthy events this week that shared a common theme – that of gratitude. UND President Armacost has been highlighting this virtue recently, and I certainly concur. The three events followed each other on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday earlier this week. The first event was the “State of the UND Alumni Association & […]

This past Tuesday we held one of the periodic conversations I have with the SMHS family that we call Java with Josh. This time we again had a terrific turnout, with nearly 80 faculty and staff participating on the virtual videoconference call. Pre-pandemic, we used to hold the discussions in the Grand Forks building and […]

One of my long-time heroes died last week at the age of 88. Bill Russell, the renowned defensive superstar center of the Boston Celtics basketball team from 1956 through 1969, passed away peacefully with his wife at his side (according to news reports). I became enthralled with the Russell persona as a young basketball fanatic […]

As announced officially by Johns Hopkins University this past Wednesday and previewed by us recently, Donald Warne, M.D., M.P.H., director of the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) Indians Into Medicine (INMED) program, chair of the department of Indigenous Health, and the School’s associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), will be […]

About a quarter of our School’s total budget comes from grants and contracts, and most of the grants come from federal agencies, most commonly the National Institutes of Health. Such grants are essential to support the School’s research enterprise, and most of this research could not be done without the associated grant support. Because almost […]

One of the best-known health care providers in the country, based in the Midwest, just completed a mass mailing to physicians with an appeal to return to the Midwest to practice medicine. Susan and I got such a flyer in the mail earlier this week. It highlights a supply chain problem that we at the […]

This has been a busy week at your UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences, largely related to the arrival last week of the 78 freshman medical students in the Class of 2026. This past Wednesday, Susan and I hosted a reception for the new students, as has been our custom over the years. We […]

As I mentioned in my column last week, I had the pleasure and honor of welcoming the medical student Class of 2026 to the UND SMHS this past Tuesday. I met with the class in person, although I was masked (as I routinely do when indoors around others). While the latest Centers for Disease Control […]

Happy first day of the new academic year! And Happy Fourth of July weekend! Yesterday marked the end of the 2022 academic (and fiscal) year (AY) for UND and the SMHS. The school’s budget for AY23 has been approved by President Armacost and the North Dakota University System (NDUS), and has been successfully uploaded into […]

Earlier this week I received my copy of the summer edition of North Dakota Physician, the quarterly publication of the North Dakota Medical Association (NDMA) for its members. Because it contained several articles that may be of interest to the entire SMHS family, I thought I would summarize some of the pieces, especially for the […]