What would convince a born-and-raised Michigander to up and move to Minot, North Dakota?<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted adventure, and nothing says adventure like North Dakota,\u201d smiled Dr. Lauren Wake, a psychiatric physician at Trinity Health in Minot, N.D.<\/p>\n
In the last year of her psychiatry residency in Detroit \u2013 2021 \u2013 the former Michigan State Spartan began scheduling interviews with health systems. Admitting that practicing in urban Detroit was \u201creally in the trenches,\u201d Wake explained that she still wanted \u201ca little bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she learned that a health system with a new hospital in north-central North Dakota had an opening in psychiatric medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI came out here to interview and I ended up signing the contract before I left,\u201d said Wake, admitting that she bought a horse within six months of living in northwestern North Dakota.<\/p>\n
Why?<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause that\u2019s what you do when you move to North Dakota. I immediately fell in love with this place. It\u2019s been really fun. I\u2019ve gotten involved in the community, and I have been enjoying teaching the medical students.\u201d<\/p>\n
On this last point, nearly four years into her Minot practice Wake was surprised to learn in January that UND\u2019s M.D.<\/p>\n
Class of 2025 had named her the next namesake of the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences Preceptor Recognition Student Scholarship.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2021, the Preceptor Recognition Student Scholarship Program, funded by a $100,000 endowment with the UND Alumni Association & Foundation (AAF), asks fourth-year medical students to select their favorite preceptor (or clinical instructor) based on their third-year clinical rotations. In May of the academic year, these graduating medical students reunite with their chosen preceptor when a scholarship is given in the preceptor\u2019s name to the second-year UND medical student who earned the highest scores in the first 20 months (Phase 1) of their class\u2019s four-year curriculum.<\/p>\n
Helping UND and the UND AAF convey the good news to Wake was fourth-year medical student Mika Green, who is wrapping up her fourth-year rotations in the Minot region.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to recognize someone who was boots-on-the-ground and in the trenches, working with students every day to create a good teaching and learning environment,\u201d said Green. \u201cWhen we were looking for nominees, we had these four main categories in mind: teaching, communication, role-modeling, and mentorship.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Wake covers each of these bases said Green.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is extremely personable and approachable for students, patients, and everyone else on the unit,\u201d Green added. \u201cAfter patient interviews, she is able to take these very complex concepts and break them down for students so they can better understand the material and what providers do in psychiatry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Referencing the shortage of mental health providers in North Dakota, particularly in the state\u2019s western half, Wake added that she took on medical and other students in part because she feels obligated to help grow the ranks of practicing mental health providers.<\/p>\n
That said, she acknowledged that teaching quickly became her \u201cfavorite thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI always thought the teaching was the most important part of practice, because that\u2019s what keeps you fresh,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I was a medical student, psychiatry was one of my first rotations and I thought that I would be scared on the in-patient unit because that\u2019s what you see in films like A Clockwork Orange<\/em>. That\u2019s the stigma surrounding it.\u201d<\/p>\n But after getting to know psychiatric patients, providers, and the mental health system generally, Wake very quickly learned to love psychiatric medicine \u2013 and that the stigma it carries is often unfounded.<\/p>\n \u201cI really enjoyed my experience,\u201d she continued. \u201cI did all my other rotations and decided psychiatry is my passion. This is what I want to learn about every single day and continue to explore. And it\u2019s really important for students to get a good experience with psychiatry, so I try and be that good experience. We\u2019re in a huge shortage, so it\u2019s really important to attract younger students into this field. We need them.\u201d<\/p>\n A Minnesota native who plans on practicing family medicine, Green added that this openness \u2013 helping train everyone from medical students to nurses to residents at the UND Center for Family Medicine in Minot \u2013 is part of why Wake is being honored.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a preceptor, Dr. Wake shows unparalleled enthusiasm for teaching, regardless of whether the student is interested in pursuing psychiatry or not,\u201d Green concluded. \u201cShe cares about the education and well-being of each student and consistently asks for feedback herself. She\u2019s a wealth of knowledge who really took the bull by the horns. She\u2019s so dedicated and enthusiastic about teaching students and we wanted to recognize that.\u201d<\/p>\n With something of a blush, Wake just smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cMy motto is: if you can treat the sickest of the sick, you can treat anyone thereafter,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so that\u2019s what my training did for me. Moving out here, I loved the community. I felt like, \u2018if something were to happen to me, these people would care.\u2019 I just felt like it was a really supportive community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What would convince a born-and-raised Michigander to up and move to Minot, North Dakota? \u201cI wanted adventure, and nothing says adventure like North Dakota,\u201d smiled Dr. Lauren Wake, a psychiatric physician at Trinity Health in Minot, N.D. In the last year of her psychiatry residency in Detroit \u2013 2021 \u2013 the former Michigan State Spartan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":13191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1921,276,710,3504,546,858,284,3503,1090],"class_list":["post-13190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alumni-association","tag-award","tag-foundation","tag-green","tag-minot","tag-preceptor","tag-psychiatry","tag-trinity-health","tag-wake"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n