University of Minnesota Medical Student Receives Award for Contributions to Family Medicine

April 26, 2010

Peter Olsen, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Minnesota Medical School, received the Medical Student Award for Contributions to Family Medicine Award from the Minnesota Academy of Family Physicians (MAFP). 

The Medical Student Award recognizes a medical student for family medicine activities on a local, community, medical school, state or national level.  Candidates are nominated by teachers and/or fellow students.

Nominators say Olsen has a clear vision about his future as a rural family physician, and a talent in being able to articulate both his personal vision, and a vision of the vital role of rural family physicians in the future.

As a student, Olsen had a chance to impact our current political leaders as they debated and deliberated on health care.  He was invited by Senator Amy Klobuchar to attend the President’s address to the joint congressional session in Washington DC.  Then in September, Senator Klobuchar invited him to be with the V-I-P party (which included President Obama and former Vice President Mondale) for the rally on health care reform in Minneapolis.  Olsen told the President that he wants to be a good rural family doctor practicing on the Iron Range or in a smaller community and the President told him “that is just what we need in this country.”

Olsen was presented with his award during the MAFP Spring Refresher on April 15, 2010, at the Crowne Plaza Riverfront Hotel in St. Paul.

The Minnesota Academy of Family Physicians is a professional association of approximately 3,000 family physicians, family medicine residents and medical students established to assist family physicians in providing quality medical care in Minnesota.  The MAFP is the largest specialty organization in Minnesota and is a state chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the largest medical specialty organization in the United States, with more than 90,000 members.

 

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