Your SDSMA Membership Supports Medical Students

Keith Hansen, MD
President, South Dakota State Medical Association
May 30, 2025

In my first editorial as president of the SDSMA, I would like to thank you for the honor of serving in this capacity and look forward to working with you to enhance patient care and medical practice in the state of South Dakota. During my term I would like to address the importance of membership in the SDSMA and the AMA. Only through speaking with a unified voice, which the SDSMA and AMA allows us to achieve can we hope to make positive changes for our patients and for medical practice. The ability of a unified voice to have an impact in Washington DC, was illustrated to me when I had the opportunity to attend the AMA National Advocacy Conference in February. This conference demonstrated how the AMA was able to get important Medicare funding issues in front of legislators from throughout the United States.

The SDSMA is a strong supporter and advocate for medical education at all levels; undergraduate, graduate and CME. Your membership in the SDSMA supports our medical students and residents in a variety of ways.  With the recent changes in Step 1 of USMLE to pass/fail, residencies have had to turn to different methods to evaluate medical students for inclusion in their programs. The SDSMA has assisted in this transition by providing opportunities for medical students to build their curriculum vitas in multiple ways and enhance their residency application. South Dakota Medicine, the journal of the SDSMA, is a member-supported, peer-reviewed, PubMed-cited journal which gives our medical students the opportunity to publish their research and scholarly activities. Last year South Dakota Medicine published a Humanities Special edition which highlighted our medical students’ prowess in the humanities; including poetry, short stories, painting, and sketches. This was an incredibly powerful compendium of articles which you as a member can find on the SDSMA website. Medical students from USD SSOM also present posters and an oral presentation at the SDSMA annual leadership conference. These abstracts are also PubMed accessible and able to be downloaded. Residency program directors will review PubMed listed abstracts and manuscripts as part of a medical student’s application. All of these scholarly activities enhance our medical students’ applications for the various residency programs. Having worked with medical students applying to obstetrics and gynecology these scholarly programs significantly improve the student’s chance of acceptance.

The SDSMA also provides medical students leadership opportunities within the organization. These leadership positions allow our students a significant chance to experience organized medicine and the effect(s) it can have on medical practice and the care of our patients. These opportunities also enhance the students’ application to residency programs.

The SDSMA Foundation also awards numerous scholarships annually to USD SSOM students which greatly helps them during this time of increasing costs of attending medical school. Your membership in the SDSMA enhances our students’ opportunities and improves their applications for residency programs. As a member of the SDSMA I ask you to encourage physicians in your practice or area of the state to join to help support our medical students and our future partners.