'Nothing says adventure like North Dakota': UND medical students name Dr. Lauren Wake ‘preceptor of the year’
GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- What would convince a born-and-raised Michigander to up and move to Minot, North Dakota?
“I wanted adventure, and nothing says adventure like North Dakota,” smiled Dr. Lauren Wake, a psychiatric physician at Trinity Health in Minot, N.D.
In the last year of her psychiatry residency in Detroit – 2021 – the former Michigan State Spartan began scheduling interviews with health systems. Admitting that practicing in urban Detroit was “really in the trenches,” Wake explained that she still wanted “a little bit more.”
Then she learned that a health system with a new hospital in north-central North Dakota had an opening in psychiatric medicine.
“I came out here to interview and I ended up signing the contract before I left,” said Wake, admitting that she bought a horse within six months of living in northwestern North Dakota.
Why?
“Because that’s what you do when you move to North Dakota. I immediately fell in love with this place. It’s been really fun. I’ve gotten involved in the community, and I have been enjoying teaching the medical students.”
On this last point, nearly four years into her Minot practice Wake was surprised to learn in January that UND’s M.D.
Class of 2025 had named her the next namesake of the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences Preceptor Recognition Student Scholarship.
Founded in 2021, the Preceptor Recognition Student Scholarship Program, funded by a $100,000 endowment with the UND Alumni Association & Foundation (AAF), asks fourth-year medical students to select their favorite preceptor (or clinical instructor) based on their third-year clinical rotations. In May of the academic year, these graduating medical students reunite with their chosen preceptor when a scholarship is given in the preceptor’s name to the second-year UND medical student who earned the highest scores in the first 20 months (Phase 1) of their class’s four-year curriculum.
Helping UND and the UND AAF convey the good news to Wake was fourth-year medical student Mika Green, who is wrapping up her fourth-year rotations in the Minot region.
“We wanted to recognize someone who was boots-on-the-ground and in the trenches, working with students every day to create a good teaching and learning environment,” said Green. “When we were looking for nominees, we had these four main categories in mind: teaching, communication, role-modeling, and mentorship.”
Dr. Wake covers each of these bases said Green.
“She is extremely personable and approachable for students, patients, and everyone else on the unit,” Green added. “After patient interviews, she is able to take these very complex concepts and break them down for students so they can better understand the material and what providers do in psychiatry.”
Referencing the shortage of mental health providers in North Dakota, particularly in the state’s western half, Wake added that she took on medical and other students in part because she feels obligated to help grow the ranks of practicing mental health providers.
That said, she acknowledged that teaching quickly became her “favorite thing.”
“I always thought the teaching was the most important part of practice, because that’s what keeps you fresh,” she said. “When I was a medical student, psychiatry was one of my first rotations and I thought that I would be scared on the in-patient unit because that’s what you see in films like A Clockwork Orange. That’s the stigma surrounding it.”
But after getting to know psychiatric patients, providers, and the mental health system generally, Wake very quickly learned to love psychiatric medicine – and that the stigma it carries is often unfounded.
“I really enjoyed my experience,” she continued. “I did all my other rotations and decided psychiatry is my passion. This is what I want to learn about every single day and continue to explore. And it’s really important for students to get a good experience with psychiatry, so I try and be that good experience. We’re in a huge shortage, so it’s really important to attract younger students into this field. We need them.”
A Minnesota native who plans on practicing family medicine, Green added that this openness – helping train everyone from medical students to nurses to residents at the UND Center for Family Medicine in Minot – is part of why Wake is being honored.
“As a preceptor, Dr. Wake shows unparalleled enthusiasm for teaching, regardless of whether the student is interested in pursuing psychiatry or not,” Green concluded. “She cares about the education and well-being of each student and consistently asks for feedback herself. She’s a wealth of knowledge who really took the bull by the horns. She’s so dedicated and enthusiastic about teaching students and we wanted to recognize that.”
With something of a blush, Wake just smiled.
“My motto is: if you can treat the sickest of the sick, you can treat anyone thereafter,” she said. “And so that’s what my training did for me. Moving out here, I loved the community. I felt like, ‘if something were to happen to me, these people would care.’ I just felt like it was a really supportive community.”
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Brian James Schill
Director, Office of Alumni & Community Relations
UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences
701.777.6048 direct | 701.777.4305 office
brian.schill@UND.edu | www.UND.edu