May 17, 2016

AS I SEE IT

By Neal A. Shipman
Farmer Editor

This past weekend, my wife, Lisa, and I had the opportunity to watch our oldest son, Justin, join with 70 other young men and women to proudly walk across the stage of the Chester Fritz Auditorium where they received their Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences.
Like so many parents, who watch their children graduate, these are special times. They are proud times. And they are truly times of celebration.
Graduation, whether it be from grade school, high school or college, marks a significant chapter in our children’s lives and the start of a new beginning. The choice, of course, is what do these young adults do with their choices.
For Justin, while in high school, he decided that he wanted to be a doctor. He knew that the career path that he was choosing was not an easy one. He knew he had to study hard and earn high grades in high school and then continue that academic success through four years of college, with the hope of scoring high enough in the national MCAT exam to be one of the few, of the thousands of applicants each year who try to get accepted into a medical school.
For his eight years of hard work in high school and college, he was offered a spot to attend UND’s medical school and to become a part of the school’s Class of 2016. And last Sunday, his dreams of becoming a doctor became a reality.
But before Dr. Justin Shipman and his fellow classmate doctors can begin their medical practice, they will be spending the next three to seven years attending some of the most highly-regarded residency programs in the nation, such as the Mayo Clinic, Duke, Case Western and Dartmouth, to further their education and training in areas like orthopedic surgery, neurology, anesthesiology, internal medicine, obstetrics, pediatrics, family medicine and many other specialties.
And that is what we, along with all of the other parents and friends, celebrated on Sunday as North Dakota welcomed its newest 71 physicians.
So to Dr. Justin Shipman, and all of your medical school classmates from the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences Class of 2016, congratulations!!!

WATFORD CITY WEATHER