• Sharing Mayo Clinic

    Learning through Academic Competitions

Education has always been a part of my life. Beyond being a student at various times of my life, I have worked in the field of education almost my entire career. Here at Mayo Clinic, I consult with and assist the College of Medicine with their communications needs.

Over the years, I have interacted with program directors, faculty members, administrators, supporting staff and students from across Mayo Clinic's campuses. From them, I have seen how well-prepared Mayo Clinic students are. Besides learning from highly skilled, talented and caring mentors, physicians and professors, students spend many hours practicing and perfecting the skills necessary to be successful in their career. In addition, they are taught about the importance of teaming and collaborating with colleagues in other medical disciplines to put the needs of their patients first.

In the Mayo School of Health Sciences (MSHS), one of the five schools in the College of Medicine, I discovered, students have an opportunity to put their knowledge to use and enhance their skills in an interesting and unique way: through academic competitions.

One of the competitions I learned about is the Clarion Team Case Competition. This is a national competition that asks a cross-discipline team of four graduate and professional health care students to collaborate to solve a fictional medical situation. The participants are given seven weeks to conduct an analysis of this medical event. As part of their analysis they are asked not only to find a solution to the situation but they are also asked to create recommendations that will enable them to avoid something similar in the future.

Let me introduce you to Marla Hall, R.N. Marla graduated from the MSHS Nurse Practitioner program in Rochester and currently works in Mayo Clinic’s Emergency Department. While a student in the program, she participated in the Clarion Competition. Her team included two nurse practitioner students and two medical school students. I invite you to listen to Marla talk about her Clarion experience in the following video.

If you would like to learn more about educational opportunities as an allied health professional at Mayo Clinic, please visit the following website: http://www.mayo.edu/mshs.

Barb Sorensen is a consultant in Public Affairs.

Related Articles