Grand Rounds

SMHS Student Affairs & Admissions News

MS3: ERAS tokens, RuralMed

ERAS tokens for the 2024 season

ERAS tokens were emailed to current third-year students on June 22, 2022. If you did not receive your token, please check your junk email or other folders.

As a third-year medical student, you can register your ERAS token now. This will be the only token you receive for the ERAS 2024 season whether you register it now or next year. You will not be able to start the actual ERAS application until June 2023.

The benefit of registering your ERAS token now is that you will have the ability to request a letter of recommendation through the LoR portal. You can send a link to your letter writers so that they can upload the letters directly into ERAS.

Get to know your preceptors and clerkship directors while you are on your rotations. Ask them to write you letters of recommendation.

  • It is easier to ask for letters of recommendation while on the clerkship.
  • Give your potential letter writer a CV and a personal statement at the time of your request.
  • Confirm with the letter writer that they will be able to write a good letter of recommendation.

Be sure to read the summative comments from each clerkship’s evaluations. These comments must be added to your Dean’s letter (MSPE). If you don’t agree with the comments, talk with your preceptor(s) to get them changed NOW, while the evaluation is still fresh in their minds. These summative comments cannot be changed or deleted without the writer’s permission.

Accommodations in the Medical Curriculum

Accommodations for medical reasons in all phases of the medical curriculum, including exemptions from seeing COVID-19 patients, are handled through the Disability Services for Students (DSS) office. Students can initiate an accommodation request by visiting the DSS website to review application information and access the link to the application. If desired, students can contact the Student Affairs & Admissions office for Dr. Porter’s help to facilitate the initial contact with DSS staff.

Accommodation requests approved by the DSS office will be effective for one trimester. To continue or modify the accommodation for the next trimester, students will need to have a brief conversation with the DSS Director, Dr. Sarah Kaiser, at least two weeks prior to the end of the term. You will not need to initiate another medical evaluation. Dr. Kaiser can be reached at 701.777.4076.

Details regarding the process for modifying the training of students with health conditions that impact student participation in the medical curriculum are described in policy 3.7. It should be noted that this policy does not apply to acute illness conditions. Policies 4.17 and 4.18 are applicable to acute illnesses of students, and describe the process to obtain an excused absence for specific elements in the medical curriculum.

RuralMed Program

RuralMed is a state-sponsored program designed to increase the number of health care providers for rural North Dakota (rural does not include Bismarck-Mandan, Fargo-West Fargo, Grand Forks, or Minot).

Students accepted for RuralMed will have the cost of tuition up to four years paid through a forgivable loan, in return for practicing in rural North Dakota for five years.

This program is open to any medical student and any specialty. Additional information and application available online at: med.UND.edu/student-affairs-admissions/ruralmed.

MyRecordTracker.com

Please make sure when you are uploading your flu shot to put the expiration date as Oct. 31 of the following year, regardless of what day you have your shot. This way you will start getting notifications in the beginning of the next year starting Oct. 1.

Please make sure to upload current health insurance cards.

If you are repeating your Hepatitis B series, please make sure you are keeping that series up-to-date.

If your myrecordtracker.com is not kept up to date, it could result in no shadowing or getting pulled from clinic.

The system is set up to remind you 30 days, 15 days, and 5 days before it expires. When you log on to check which immunizations or information are expiring, remember to look at the dates – it would likely be influenza, tuberculosis, or Health Insurance Cards.

Your status will still be green until the expiration date.