UND’s Indians Into Medicine program to host inaugural Health Professions Career Expo at School of Medicine & Health Sciences

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – On Friday, Nov. 13, the nation’s oldest Indigenous healthcare training initiative, the University of North Dakota’s Indians Into Medicine (INMED) program, is hosting a Health Professions Career Expo at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS). 

This first-of-its-kind event, which is open to all UND students pursuing health careers, will inaugurate what its organizers say will be the first of many such career expos at UND focusing on healthcare jobs in the state and region. 

“We have nationally recognized providers coming, as well as a host of North Dakota and other regional health systems,” said INMED Program Manager Danielle Thompson, explaining how the goal of the Expo is not only to connect health professions students to future employers but to expand the School’s network of facilities offering clinical placements for SMHS students of all cohorts. “We’ve got several Indian Health Service (IHS) sites who will be here. Plus Mayo Clinic, Altru, CentraCare, Sanford, and several smaller clinics and systems.” 

IHS hiring surge 

The commitment from multiple IHS providers is huge, added INMED Director Melvin Monette-Barajas, explaining how the federal agency several months ago put out a notice that it was looking to hire providers and staff across its system. 

“The larger issue is that although UND prepares our health professionals well for rural health practice, our Indian reservations are beyond rural,” Monette-Barajas said. “It’s not so much distance that makes it hard for rural providers to recruit to their communities as it is what young professionals are thinking about housing or access to certain amenities. This event gives providers an opportunity to reach future providers and say, ‘Here’s what we’re offering you. Come and join our community.’” 

Given that its hospitals and clinics tend to be located in rural settings, the IHS “hiring surge” means that INMED’s mission to develop Indigenous physicians, therapists, and medical lab scientists for rural practice is automatically in line to support not only IHS, but both the North Dakota Healthcare Workforce Initiative (HWI) and UND’s ND85 effort to produce more healthcare providers for North Dakota. 

“There are IHS jobs in D.C., in Phoenix, and right here in North Dakota – and the salaries are very comparable, even if they’re rural,” said Thompson. “My hope is that these employers come in and tell our students about all the amenities they have at their site – daycare, parks, great schools.” 

“The Hustle” 

Part of the Expo, continued Thompson, will be “The Hustle,” a “Shark Tank”-style room where health providers are given a limit of 10 minutes each to pitch their organization to a room full of job-seeking soon-to-be grads. Rather than simply setting up a booth and waiting for students to come to them, that is, Thompson said that she wanted to encourage healthcare organizations to “sell” themselves and their communities in a more active way. 

“We wanted something a little more robust than just expecting the students to walk up and down the aisles,” Thompson said. “Instead of just meeting with one student at a time, we wanted to give these employers an opportunity to be in a room with not only our students but our graduate directors, our clinical placement coordinators, our department administrators.” 

Nodding alongside Thompson, Monette-Barajas noted that the Expo will contribute to what used to be known as the word-of-mouth “moccasin network” by which Indigenous peoples historically shared news and information of developments in their communities. 

“For me, success means that these employers leave UND with a full understanding of the depth and breadth of healthcare students that UND offers and that they go out and tell their colleagues at other facilities that UND is here and we’re producing some top grads,” he said. “That’s my measure of success: In year one the moccasin network grows the interest in UND as a place to come to recruit staff.” 

Thompson agreed, noting that at least 70% of physicians graduating through UND’s INMED program have entered primary care.” INMED, she said, wants to see “any student connected to healthcare education here. We are part of that larger mission to build out healthcare for rural North Dakota and Indian Country and part of that mission is bringing students and providers from all backgrounds together to learn more about each other.” 

The Health Professions Career Expo will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

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Brian James Schill
Senior Communication Specialist
Office of Communications & Engagement 
UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences 
701.777.6048 direct | 701.777.4305 office
brian.schill@UND.edu  |  www.UND.edu