MARQUETTE, Mich. (WZMQ) – Michigan State University is hitting the road. The destination? The U.P.
MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz and a team of faculty and administrators are touring Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, strengthening long standing partnerships and building new ones through the Spartan bus tour.
“Trying to find ways that we can partner more closely with local communities, healthcare systems, and school districts,” said MSU President, Kevin Guskiewicz.
Stops included coach Tom Izzo’s hometown of Iron Mountain, the Forestry Innovation Center in Escanaba, and the MSU College of Human Medicine’s Rural Physician Program in Marquette.
“Of the 362 graduates, one in four of those students come back and practice in the Upper Peninsula, and when you compare those numbers with national statistics that far exceeds what other rural mission programs are accomplishing,” said Dr. Stuart Johnson, Community Assistant Dean of the Upper Peninsula Campus, MSU.
One program that is unique to Michigan State is the Northern Wilderness Emergency and Sports Medicine Elective, affectionately called “Compass”, a truly one of a kind opportunity offered exclusively to students on the MSU U.P. campus.
“It teaches them resilience and improvisation to navigate emergencies in the outdoors or even just in a parking lot,” said E.R. doctor Abby Prentice.
The mission at the U.P. campus is this… recruit, train and retain; recruiting students with a passion for serving rural and underserved communities, and train them through immersive community based medical education, and then retain them as residents and ultimately as practicing physicians who choose to live and serve in the Upper Peninsula.
