Spring Semester Recap

With the Spring semester coming to a close this week, here's a little recap of pre-health events and student accomplishments:

Weekly Events

Danielle's newest shirt,
earned from winning the 2019 WPC.

• We hosted our first ever Weekly Physiology Challenge (WPC) on Wednesdays throughout the semester. Students competed each week for points and worked to climb the leaderboard posted here on The Atrium. The 2019 WPC Champion was Danielle Theis, who is heading off to medical school later this year. Danielle will be rocking an awesome new shirt as her prize for willing this semester's competition. 

• Many of our students attended Rapid City Regional Hospital's Grand Rounds on Fridays throughout the semester. These events offered a free breakfast along with lectures from both local experts and representatives of other institutions. Each topic gave students exposure to research and practices relating to an array of specialties in health care. This semester, 10 different students attended these events, where they learned new things, met medical students, residents, and professionals, and even scored a few shadowing opportunities!

Off-Campus Events

• Two of our pre-health students worked with Regional Health to create a life-sized Operation-style board game (named "Reggie") for community outreach events. You can read more about their efforts by going here. This went so well, that a larger group of students is now creating a similar piece for use at SD Mines outreach events! Details to come in a future blogpost!

Keaton Gray poses with "Reggie".

• South Dakota One Health hosted a day-long conference about Preserving the Usefulness of Antibiotics for People and Animals at the Rapid City Regional Hospital. The conference featured speakers representing various professions across the state and served as a forum for discussion of this important topic in health care.

• Students attended a Pain Management Update session along with local practitioners at Rapid City Regional Hospital to discuss the latest research and best practices for helping patients manage pain.

• Several students attended the day-long New Paradigms in Mental Healthcare Conference sponsored by local providers at Manlove Brain and Body Health and the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Center in March. Here, they learned about the latest in neurological research as it pertains to mental health and practice paradigms for treating mentally ill patients.

• Students traveled to Vermillion, SD, in April to attend USD's Pre-Med Day, where they learned about USD's admissions process, toured the facilities (including a trip to the cadaver lab and simulated examination rooms), and heard from current medical students and professors. You can read all about it by going here.

• At the end of April, students were able to check out Regional Health's brand new da Vinci X Robot! This robot is used by general surgeons right here in Rapid City and our students were able to test their skills by driving the robot through simulated movements and learn more about how the robot is advancing health care within our community.

On-Campus Pre-Health Pathways Activities

• In January, we hosted a movie screening of the documentary Defining Hope, a film about palliative care, in the Christensen Hall of Fame on campus. Following the film, a discussion panel comprised of local palliative care professionals talked about their experiences in the field and answered students' questions. Copies of advanced directive forms and additional information were made available.

• We hosted two mock MCAT exams this semester, one in January and one in March, to help students prepare for the MCAT. Students found that taking the mock exam was useful for helping them self-assess their preparedness and direct their future study strategies. Studies have shown that students who take a mock exam often perform better on real exams due to increased familiarity with the setting, interface, and expectations. 

• In February, students interviewed for a wide range of jobs in the health care field via this semester's Career Fair.

• Later in February, students helped out with the annual Wellness Fair by working wellness booths, doing demonstrations, and engaging in dialogues about wellness on campus.

Kate Dickinson receives the Gustafson Student Leadership Award.
Left to Right: Dr. Pat Mahon (Dean of Students), Kate Dickinson,
Jacob Oberpriller (last year's Gustafson awardee), and
Dr. Jim Rankin (President). 

• Graduate student, Jevin Meyerink trained a few excited students in cell line culturing techniques towards the end of March.

• Several of our pre-health students earned awards for their achievements as students, volunteers, and leaders. Keep your eyes open for future student spotlights showcasing our kind, talented, and hard-working students!

• The Student Success Center hosted several professional development workshops this semester, including topics such as time management, financial well-being, imposter phenomenon, and personal essay preparation for health professions programs.

• Throughout the semester, student organizations, such as the Future Health Science Professionals and the Biomedical Engineering Society, engaged in several pre-health student activities, including hosting USD medical student discussion panels, doing outreach with local middle and high school students, touring local health care facilities, seeing demonstrations of new health technologies, and learning new skills, such as suturing techniques.

• SD Mines hosted our first Matriculates Reception at the end of April to honor the students accepted into professional programs for 2019. These students will be starting programs in allopathic medicine, chiropractic medicine, dentistry, health administration, pharmacy, and physician assistant schools later this year. The keynote speaker for this event was Dr. Matthew Simmons of USD Sanford School of Medicine. He gave a fantastic speech titled Human Dimensions of Professionalism before each of our students was formally recognized. You can check out photos from this event on the SD Mines Flickr page.

Students matriculating into professional programs this year.
Left to Right: Jessica Levey, Danielle Theis, Lydia Ford, Margaret Rizor, Ganeva Kendall, and Matthew Howard.

Moving Forward...

The Summer and Fall 2019 semesters are sure to see many similar events as well as a few new things for our pre-health student community. We will still be attending Grand Rounds on Fridays and plan to have more medical student panels, informational sessions, and other professional development activities available for our students in the coming months. As these opportunities arise, we will be sending out e-mails via our Pre-Health Student E-mail list, so if you haven't already, be sure to sign up by going here and don't forget to confirm your subscription by following the link in the e-mail that you get after submitting this form!

Thanks for a great semester and we look forward to seeing more of you! 

Feel free to contact Dr. J if you are interested in any of our future (or past) events and want to know more about how you can be involved in the pre-health community here at SD Mines! 

Student Spotlight: Kristen Haller

Here at SDSM&T we have a growing and thriving community of pre-health students. Today, we are shining a spotlight on Kristen Haller. Kristen is a mechanical engineering major who is following a pre-medicine pathway here at SD Mines. Earlier this year, she was named the Outstanding Student Organization Member for Alpha Omega Epsilon, and received this semester's C.H.A.D. Award (Caring, Helping, Aspiring, and Developing), which "recognizes a student, faculty, or staff member each semester who exemplifies Chad Nienhueser's life and aspirations". We caught up with Kristen to ask her about her pre-health journey and how she is preparing for a career in health care.

Kristen receiving her C.H.A.D. Award.

What kinds of shadowing opportunities have you had? What did you learn from those experiences? 
I've had a few different shadowing opportunities, all of which I found very helpful. I shadowed an ER physician for a full shift and got to hear about her experience through medical school, residency, and her current position. A couple years ago I was able to watch a hernia repair surgery done with the da Vinci robot, and that was one of the most incredible experiences I've had! Last summer I got my EMT certification and with that program I was able to shadow paramedics on an ambulance and shadow in the emergency room too. There were some very exciting and intense cases I was able to see during shadowing. All of these opportunities have solidified my decision in wanting to go to medical school and become a doctor. 

What kinds of research have you been involved in while being a student?
I'm currently doing biomedical research in the Mechanical Engineering department with Dr. Prasoon Diwakar. I am researching how to use both electroporation and cold atmospheric plasma into a combined technique to kill breast cancer cells - ultimately to treat breast cancer and/or shrink the size of tumors. 

What kinds of volunteering do you do?

I do most of my volunteering through Alpha Omega Epsilon and through Rotaract and I have done quite a variety of things. Through these organizations I have volunteered with Girl Scouts, highway cleanup, Feeding South Dakota, Kids Against Hunger, organizing the STEMinist 3K, Mines Buddies events, and more. If anyone is interested in joining a fun volunteering club, I highly recommend Rotaract!

What did you do to prepare for the MCAT?
I used a study book that went through each subject covered on the MCAT along with practice questions and two full-length practice tests. It also had very helpful tips just in general for the test as far as how to approach each section, how to manage your time, etc. Towards the end of my studying, I purchased online practice tests through AAMC that imitate the MCAT almost perfectly. I'm very glad I did those so I knew exactly what to expect on test day. I took the MCAT last October and will be applying with that score as applications open in May.

We heard you were just inducted into The Order of the Engineer. Congrats! Tell us a little bit about what that means and why it is important to you.
The Order of the Engineer is an organization that promotes good ethics and responsibility for engineers. During the induction ceremony, each new member is given a ring to wear on the pinky of their dominant hand as a reminder to always make good decisions, especially since engineers have a great influence on society and our future. I'm very proud to be a member and I enjoy wearing my ring as a reminder to myself of the oath of responsibility that I took.

Students receive their rings after being inducted into The Order of the Engineer. (Kristen is on the far left!)

What do you do when you aren’t studying, conducting research, or volunteering?

My favorite thing to do in my free time is go hiking and exploring out in the Black Hills. It's such a beautiful place to be and there are endless trails to discover. Other than that, I always love relaxing by watching movies or just hanging out with friends. 

How do you manage stress?

I always like to get out and about by hiking or going for a walk to get my mind off of things. Or if I have more time, I enjoy crafting, baking, and watching movies. I try to find something totally separate from what is stressing me out, and go to a different location to re-frame my mindset.

What advice do you have for our freshman pre-health students?

It's not too early to start getting involved and getting experience! Try out different organizations to find ones that you fit well with and enjoy. Start asking your professors if they have research you can help with - sometimes they don't advertise open positions and it doesn't hurt to ask.

FHSP Sponsors Trip to USD Sanford School of Medicine's Pre-Med Day

The front of the Lee building.

On Saturday, the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine held their annual Pre-Med Day in the Andrew E. Lee Memorial Medicine and Science Building on their campus in Vermillion, SD. The Future Health Science Professionals sponsored the trip for members, covering the costs of travel and lodging for the weekend. We left Rapid City on Friday afternoon and arrived at our hotel in Vermillion around 11:00pm. After a hot breakfast, compliments of the hotel, we checked out and made our way over to the USD campus for the day's event.

The event began with a welcome from the USD Pre-Med Society officers and from the Dean of Medical Student Affairs, Dr. Dawn Bragg. Next came Dr. Pasquale Manzerra, who talked with us about the admissions process for USD SSoM and the strengths of the program. Did you know that USD SSoM won the 2017 AAMC Spencer Forman Award for Outstanding Community Service? They received this prestigious award for their community-based program with multiple campuses and clinical training sites throughout the state of South Dakota. Many of their faculty and staff have also won awards. Dr. Mark Garry was awarded the 2018 Arnold P. Gold Humanism Award and Dr. Gerald Yutrzenka was the 2018 recipient of the Exemplary Service Award from the AAMC Group on Student Affairs. We arrived early for registration on Saturday and were fortunate to get to meet Dr. Yutrzenka at Pre-Med Day before the event got started!

Dr. Manzerra discusses admissions at USD SSoM.

In 2018, the AAMC named USD SSoM as the top school in the nation for graduates practicing in a rural area and placed them in the 95th percentile for students entering into Family Medicine. Additionally, they rank in the 98th percentile for proportion of graduates who are American Indians or Alaska Natives.

We learned more about USD SSoM's Culture of Caring. Because of the small class sizes, students develop close relationships with each other and with the faculty and staff. There is a lot of respect for student input on the learning process, with students serving on various committees alongside faculty and staff, focus groups for institutional improvement, and anonymous suggestion boxes for helping improve courses and activities. The students interact in a collaborative environment rather than in a competitive one. There is a ton of support for students, including academic, personal, financial, and professional support services. There's even guidance for pregnancy and adoption during medical school to help students who are planning for a family during medical school.

DNA artwork on the floor of the Lee building.

They also have an integrated wellness program with the motto Well Students, Well Doctors, Well Patients, which focuses on helping students live balanced lives during their training and promotes self-care to combat student/physician burnout. Throughout the year, there are many wellness activities available, including student-led events, mentoring and advising, stress management, and resilience training. Each class elects wellness officers, who oversee budget and promote wellness for each of their representative classes, such as yoga, movie nights, aromatherapy demonstrations, wellness retreats, study-a-thons with snacks and massages, etc. It is important for students to have these kinds of activities and wonderful that USD promotes a culture of self-care and wellness among its students. Approximately 50% of medical student experience burnout, with 9% experiencing suicidal thoughts. High levels of stress can induce anxiety, leading to a range of mental health consequences. As one of the medical students would say to us that day, "Medical school is a jealous lover. It will take over your life and drain all of your time if you don't set boundaries."

Sanford School of Medicine places an emphasis on life-long learning and uses case-based, problem-based, and team-based learning strategies alongside simulation activities and hands-on experiences to prepare medical students to be outstanding physicians. They also feature longitudinal integrated clerkships as part of their curriculum and they have opportunities to tailor Pillar 3 of the program to your specialty interest. They are one of the best "bang for your buck" institutions, featuring low in-state tuition rates and a wide array of scholarships to help students finance their educations.

There were two Q&A panels during this year's Pre-Med Day. The first panel featured students in various stages of their training...spanning from a student who is in their first year to a student who just matched into a residency program. They shared many great insights with the attendees and gave advice to those interested in applying to USD's program. After a yummy lunch of tacos/nachos, several of the faculty members spoke to students about preparing for and being successful in medical school. Dr. Dan Bird summarized their advice best when he said, "Success is to be adaptable and to be receptive to change."

USD medical students answer pre-med questions.

There was also a session about how to pay for medical school presented by Carol Hemmingson, who works for the financial aid office. During that time, the health professions advisors from the various South Dakota schools met with Dr. Manzerra to talk more about admissions and preparing students for success in medical school.

Afterward, students and their advisors reconvened for a tour of the medical school, which included a trip to the simulation rooms, study rooms, classrooms, and, of course, the gross anatomy lab. Students were able to see where medical students work, study, relax, and socialize during their time in Vermillion. We were also able to get a better feel for the kinds of resources available to students and to ask lots of questions about life in a medical program.

Inside of the main lobby of the Lee building. 

The drive back to Rapid City was full of great conversation about the things we experienced during Pre-Med Day. Overall, this was an excellent event that was well-worth the drive across the state. Next year's Pre-Med Day will again be sponsored by the Future Health Science Professionals, so if you are considering applying to USD's Sanford School of Medicine, consider joining FHSP (if you aren't already a member) and traveling with us to Vermillion for a day full of information, resources, and forums for discussion!

Hope to see you next year!