UND Center for Family Medicine-Minot: Excellence in Teaching and Patient Care Distinguishes Northwest Campus
Minot, the fourth-largest city in North Dakota (pop. 35,000), is a center of commerce
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Kimberly T. Krohn, MD ‘96, MPH, FAAFP
Program Director, UND Center for Family Medicine-Minot |
for the northwest quadrant of the state. It’s also home to a vital component of our medical school. The Northwest Campus, headed by Assistant Dean Martin Rothberg, MD, since 1998, is the learning center for approximately 14 UND medical students per year, 15 family medicine residents, and some pre-professional high school and college students. The 100 Minot volunteer community faculty members who teach medical learners combine with physicians in the surrounding communities and the 50 staff and full-time faculty members of the UND Center for Family Medicine-Minot to provide the curriculum for these programs.
The UND Family Medicine Residency Program in Minot was the first in the state. It began accepting residents in 1975. The first resident graduates were Jon Rice, MD (BS Med ‘70), and Dan Aquila, MD. The program has graduated 133 family physicians. The first program director was Robert Hankins, MD, who continues to reside in Minot. Milton Smith, MD (BS Med ‘69), the longest-serving program director, guided the program through major curriculum development and through a move to a brand new clinic that the medical school can call its own.
Family medicine residency requires that trainees develop a continuity panel of patients that are seen in all settings—in the clinic, hospital, nursing home, and/or home visits. The facilities in Minot area, including those of our close partner Trinity Health, are excellent training sites. The residency staff completes 19,000 clinic visits a year, cares for about 70 nursing home patients in our community, and has vital partnerships with Minot Head Start, the Minot Area Vocational Workshop, the Northern Plains Children’s Advocacy Center, Minot State University Student Health, and the First District Health Unit. Associate Director Stephen Stripe, MD, serves as Ward County coroner.
The emphasis of the Minot residency is rural medicine. Completing training of this sort prepares physicians for any type of practice, and is important for the physician who will practice in North Dakota. Family medicine residents complete rotations in rural sites, such as the Minne Tohe Clinic on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation; the Towner County Medical Center in Cando, ND, and the Garrison Family Clinic in Garrison, ND. Twenty-seven graduates of the program have entered rural practice as their first job, and 60 graduates have chosen to practice in North Dakota.
The medical learners of all types in the Northwest Campus appreciate the preceptor-based rotations, the close interactions with attending physicians and staff, and the great availability of professional mentors. The community is also an easy one to train in—it’s a low-crime, low-traffic and low-hassle environment.
The residency clinic at the UND Center for Family Medicine-Minot earned the Award for Excellence in Patient Management in 2008 from the North Dakota Department of Health. This reflects the commitment made by the staff to continuous quality improvement. The staff has also committed to participation in the Medicare Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, a significant effort to track specific patient care quality indicators. Mary Clare Smith, the Center’s longest serving employee (34 years), heads the PQRI effort.
The mission of the UND Center for Family Medicine-Minot is to achieve excellence in residency education, patient care, and community engagement. It has been estimated that if all Americans had a primary care physician, a savings of $67 billion, or a 5.6 percent reduction in total health care costs, would be achieved. We at the Center feel prepared to continue to contribute to the excellence in medical care achieved in North Dakota, where patient care is rated among the highest in quality in the nation at the lowest cost.
