Overview of Education

A two-year curriculum of basic medical and clinical sciences is offered with principal clinical emphasis on rural family medicine and its interrelationships with other medical specialties. Under arrangements with the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis, all students who successfully complete the two-year program at Duluth are accepted for transfer to the Medical School in Minneapolis to complete their M.D. degree requirements.

The mission of the University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth campus is to educate students who will practice family medicine and other primary care specialties in rural Minnesota and American Indian communities; to provide high quality academic and clinical education programs for professional, graduate, and undergraduate students; and to create distinguished research programs that advance knowledge in the health sciences, including rural and American Indian health issues.

The medical education objectives are accomplished by using many family medicine practitioners, as well as other primary care physicians, as preceptors and instructors throughout the two years of the program. These role models illustrate, both through their instruction and example, the delivery of medical care in rural communities and how that care integrates with medical services offered in urban settings. The rural preceptorship program in family medicine is specifically designed to meet these goals and to augment the supply of family physicians in the rural regions of Minnesota.