Medical students travel to Peru

At the School of Medicine and Health Sciences Medical Doctor White Coat Ceremony in August 2012, six members of the M.D. Class of 2016 donned their white coats as first-year medical students. They had just completed their first week of orientation to medical school and their first week of classes in the SMHS’s nationally recognized patient-centered-learning curriculum, where biomedical and clinical sciences are taught in the context of patient cases. Their first patient case was taught by SMHS Dean Joshua Wynne, concerning Ben, a young man who developed osteomyelitis of his lower leg.

Almost four years later and over 4,000 miles away from Grand Forks, they carried to Chimbote, Peru, what they learned from Ben and other patients to complete a final elective before graduation. The formal title of the elective is International /Developing Nation Medicine. As a part of the School’s service-learning initiative, the course’s stated goal is “to provide education and experience in the unique challenges and strategies of healthcare delivery for people in a developing country.”

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— Denis F. MacLeod, Assistant Director, Office of Alumni and Community Relations, School of Medicine and Health Sciences,
701.777.2733, denis.macleod@med.UND.edu