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!