Clinical Training Sites of Excellence Awardees 2020

Recognizing exceptional support

A program recognizing community and clinical partners for exceptional support to University health sciences learners.

Awardees

Expand all

Alina Health

Allina Health Website

Note from nominator:

"Allina Health and their wonderful education laboratory coordinator, Kevin Saputo-Swanson, kept communicating updates throughout the spring and early summer. Once Allina Health was able to welcome back MLS students to the laboratory beginning August 31, 2020, Kevin emailed right away. This offering allowed the opportunity to provide our students with a valuable on-site experience prior to their graduation."

Essentia Health

Essentia Health Website

Note from nominator:

"Our Duluth clinical partners have been a lynchpin in the success of our ability to keep students in the Duluth area. Without their partnership, those students would have needed to move in the middle of a pandemic to continue with their clinical education. We would not have reached the level of success that we did over the past year without them."

GuidePoint Pharmacy

GuidePoint Pharmacy website

Note from nominator:

"A longtime partner with the College of Pharmacy, GuidePoint Pharmacy will always find a way to work around possible barriers when the time comes to assign students to their sites. Their significant number of offerings are consistent, and they provide housing as a way to assist students to experience what community rural sites can offer. We especially want to highlight the partnership during COVID-19. Many of our hospital health systems cancelled their summer 2020 rotations due to COVID-19 which risked students not staying on track towards on-time graduation. GuidePoint Pharmacy was able to add additional rotation availability for Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) electives, ambulatory care and community."

HealthPartners

HealthPartners website

Note from nominator:

"Our clinical partners at Regions have done an exceptional job of training Dietetic Interns to become Registered Dietitian Nutritionists for many years. This past year, COVID 19 precautions introduced a great number of uncertainties regarding in-person versus remote learning, but the CNMs and Preceptors continued to provide excellence in teaching to all of the interns throughout the year, rolling with the changes required. We are happy to acknowledge their skill and generosity sharing their talents with our program."

Hennepin Healthcare

Hennepin Healthcare website

Note from nominator:

"Despite all setbacks and obstacles, the HCMC team in collaboration with the Med School was able to still launch the primary attachment model; the Hybrid program. They also helped vaccinate residents, fellows, and medical students."

M Physicians (UMP)

M Physicians (UMP) website

Note from nominator:

"The Broadway Clinic has been a long standing partner educating students and residents. This site educates family medicine residents, pharmacy students, and medical students participating in family medicine clinical clerkships. Students and residents continued their education and service to patients despite COVID, including a quick transition to virtual visits. The Broadway clinic was vandalized during the civil unrest and instead of retreating, reached out to their community organizing donation drives for their North Minneapolis community. "

Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic website

Note from nominator:

"This is one of the very few clinical systems that kept providing students with direct patient care clinical experiences out of the hundreds of health system sites used by the UMN School of Nursing. This allowed a number of students to maintain continuous progress towards graduation on schedule with their program plan and consistently provided robust learning experiences throughout their health system. The continuity of the residency program helped to decrease student stress, personally and academically, while providing them with high quality learner experiences in their specialty area."

M Health Fairview

M Health Fairview website

Note from nominator:

This clinical partner has been a collaborative, flexible, and willing partner to help ensure that our medical students receive the best education possible. We would not have reached the level of success that we did over the past year without them. OT MHealth managed to get all of the students who were delayed from summer, due to Covid, rescheduled in the MHealth system for summer or fall. The Clinical Nutrition Managers and Preceptors at MHealth Hospitals: East Bank, West Bank, Fairview, St. Joes, Southdale, Ridges. These clinical sites have done an exceptional job of training Dietetic Interns to become Registered Dietitian Nutritionists for 104 years; since 1917 as the first Dietetic Internship in the country. We would not have had the same level of success returning our students to the clinical environment without the broad and strong commitment of the MHealth Fairview system. When no other space was available, the faculty in this system made it work. We owe these sites a deep gratitude for their advocacy and care. MHealth Fairview stepped up in amazing ways to not only meet our usual requests, but also accommodated additional clinical rotations and students to make up for the six months students could not be in the clinical environment. As the fall semester progressed and we began to see a surge of COVID-19 cases in Minnesota, there were genuine efforts on the part of nurse and clinic managers to keep our students in the learning environment. We are particularly grateful for the team working with Dr. Bradley Benson, MHealth Fairview Chief Academic Officer. They were champions for our students’ learning and always had a “can do” attitude.

Expand all

Minnesota Community Care

Minnesota Community Care website

Note from nominator:

"During the pandemic Eastside has worked with the School of Dentistry to follow the COVID protocol that has been developed; going above and beyond by providing additional mitigation systems to keep our students and faculty safe, including extra-oral evacuation systems and PAPR's for each student. They were flexible, accepting additional students and adjusting rotation lengths to help us accommodate the need for our students to have external rotations."

Minnesota Department of Human Services

Minnesota Department of Human Services website

Note from nominator:

"Claire and the Community Behavioral Health Hospitals in MN DHS have always supported OT students in clinical learning. However, during COVID when Claire learned that learners had their experiences cut short and they needed to finish up two weeks of clinical learning she reached out to her teams and was able to find opportunities for 6 students to complete two weeks of clinical learning. The students were able to complete their clinical experience and graduate thanks to Claire and her team and their ability to provide these experiences, and we appreciate their partnership!"

Professional Rehabilitation Consultants

Professional Rehabilitation Consultants website

Note from nominator:

"PRC has been supporting students from the OT program at the University of Minnesota since 2007. They serve a diverse population in St. Paul addressing mental health needs. They have added services this past year to include a refugee population, and we value our partnership with PRC."

Sanford Health

Sanford Health website

Note from nominator:

"Sanford Bemidji was one of the institutions that did not remove College of Pharmacy students from the site, during the COVID-19 pandemic. They immediately made it clear, Sanford would honor their commitment to student learners despite the pandemic. They put in place procedures that secured the provision of services for active and safe participation of our students at rotations. Sanford leadership communicated their plan, facilitating our process at all different levels including on-boarding of students. This was of great help during a time when stress was escalating for students and the College for clinical learning sites and the risk of not meeting clinical requirements for on-time graduation."

Tri-County Health Care

Tri-County Health Care website

Note from nominator:

"Wadena has welcomed 3rd year medical students via the RPAP program for many years. The site is committed to training students to provide comprehensive care to rural communities. When the COVID pandemic hit, the Wadena medical staff developed innovative ways to test their patients for COVID and continue to care for their patients safely, and continue to educate their medical students. As they have done for years, the site ensured that their students learned the importance of leadership along with medicine. The staff and physicians from Wadena went out of their way to ensure their students could continue to learn and participate in clinical care, despite the overwhelming strain of the pandemic in their community. In addition to a supportive medical staff, Wadena supports their students' well being with an incredibly positive atmosphere and a newly remodeled home near the hospital to live in!"

Twin Cities Orthopedics

Twin Cities Orthopedics website

Note from nominator:

"TCO was truly a lifesaver for our physical therapy students in the past year. We had so many cancellations and that caused high degrees of stress. TCO, and specifically Catalyst Sports (within TCO) stepped up without hesitation. At one point they even reached out to ask if we needed more help, which was unheard of during peak Covid-related cancellations! Not only has the support of TCO helped keep our program running and our students able to graduate on time, but they have been completely understanding when our communication is hurried or a detail is lost. We are thankful for TCO and will continue to work with them in the years to come!"

Walgreens Pharmacy

Walgreens Pharmacy website

Note from nominator:

"When we as a community faced two major events in a short period of time, feelings of uncertainty became overwhelming. It takes a committed group to come forward in a timely manner to alleviate those feelings and restore a level of peace. This was exactly what Walgreens did. They continued to provide the services to a community in need and give the opportunity to our students to be part of that heroic stand. Their support for diversity can be seen in their patients, pharmacy staff and commitment and service to their communities. In collaboration with the College of Pharmacy and following guidelines and policies, Walgreens provided the mechanism to keep students safe while gaining vital knowledge and skills in their learning experience."

Welia Health

Welia Health website

Note from nominator:

"Welia Health, a rural critical access system, has provided a long standing commitment to the College of Pharmacy and stepped up to support students despite adverse conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. They were instrumental in providing Acute Care and Institutional rotations at a time when most hospital health systems were cancelling rotations due to the pandemic. The preceptors at this site advocated for students and worked with internal leadership to keep student rotations available. Welia considers students to be an incredible resource. The preceptors stated “students are an even more important resource at a time of need...pharmacy students completing APPEs are registered, insured, highly trained, and frankly should be hands-on learning during this period in history.” The students experience the dedication of these professionals and the preceptors model what students want to emulate. Welia might not have the same resources as other large, metro institutions, still their contribution to the training of our students can be compared to others in the quality of experience."

Exemplified notable qualities:

Creativity
Accepted extra students, adjusted clinical rotation schedules - created and offered new clinical learning opportunities when clinical sites closed to learners due to SARS-CoV-2

Flexibility
Supported our learners staying on track toward graduation

Persistence
Continued to take and precept learners amid the pandemic and civil unrest

Role modeling
Community service, valuing diversity, and fortitude during unrest

Transparency
Communicated frequently throughout the pandemic, the suspension of clinical experiences, and the return of those experiences