- Where is Iowa City?
- How ethnically diverse are the patients?
- What's the weather like in Iowa City?
- What's there to do in Iowa City when you're not
working?
- What's Iowa City like for kids and families?
- Are there any job opportunities for my spouse/significant
other?
- Is it possible to do an international elective
in your program?
- What are the fellowship opportunities available?
- Do you have a freestanding children's hospital?
- Is this a family friendly program?
- Is there sufficient patient volume so that I can
have multiple exposures to a variety of diseases?
- What is the program's balance between primary
and specialty care?
- What's the call schedule like?
- Do you have a research project requirement for
graduation?
- What's Iowa got that other programs don't?
1. Where is Iowa City?
Iowa City is 220 miles directly west of Chicago on Interstate 80. It's
also within a 4-5 hour drive to Minneapolis, Omaha, Kansas City and St.
Louis. It has the cultural, educational, social and political opportunities
of a bigger city with the values and ambiance of a midwestern town. Its
clean, safe, nothing is farther than a 15 min car ride, it has a great
city bus system (with bike racks!), wonderful parks, sports, schools
and even sailing. Those who have lived here and left, frequently return
because what they were looking for was in their own back yard. But we're
not the only ones who think Iowa City is great:
- USA Today listed Iowa City as the third best-educated city in the
nation.
- The Milken Institute ranked Iowa City the No. 1 small metro economy.
- Men's Journal ranked Iowa City the sixth-most sexy, healthy and safe
place to live.
- Expansion Management magazine ranked Iowa City the No. 11 metro area
for companies to relocate or expand.
- Outside Magazine ranked Iowa City No. 10 on the magazine's list of
40 best college towns
- Voted Best In The Midwest by Organic Style Magazine in its ranking
of 125 Healthy Cities
2. How ethnically diverse are the patients?
Like a lot of university towns, we have a large international community.
Growing cultural diversity is another reason Iowa City is an interesting
place to live. Diversity is embraced and celebrated with city and university
events, festivals, clubs and programs. The University works hard to recruit
and retain minorities with its affirmative action policies. About 13%
of Iowa Citians are non-white as are almost 13% of the patients seen
in our pediatric clinic.
3. What's the weather like in Iowa City?
Our weather was a lot better than the East Coast this year! For about 2 weeks every winter it's very cold and
windy and for 2 weeks every summer it's really hot and humid. The rest
of the time it's pretty nice. We have a lot of sunny days even in winter-166
per year. Our average snowfall is 28", average rainfall is 35",
average temperature in the summer is 72.6 and in the winter, 23.7.
4. What is there to do in Iowa City when
you're not working?
There are 15 different festivals and art fairs, plus concerts and race
events. There are many music venues, sports events and neighborhood street
fairs and garden walks. We also have a really big mall and several smaller
ones, 41 parks, 9 golf courses, 6 public tennis courts, 6 public pools,
some lakes and a reservoir with trails, camping & boating. There
are several bike trails, some famous bookstores, a ton of galleries and excellent
museums. There are half a dozen or more performing arts venues including
Hancher Auditorium. There's always something going on.
5. What's Iowa City like for kids and
families?
There's ice skating, bowling, organized sports, 50 public parks, miniature
golf, a great public library, a toy library, fun centers, swimming pools
and 3 beaches, 9 museums including a children's museum, dance companies
and public recreation centers that feature many activities for kids and
families at little or no cost. We also have 20 movie screens and 50-licensed
daycare providers. The Iowa City schools are perennially ranked among
the top schools in the nation. Iowa City is unique in the facilities
and services available for individuals with disabilities. Many families
who have a family member with a disability are reluctant to leave Iowa
City because they cannot duplicate those services in another location.
6. Are there any job opportunities for
my spouse/significant other?
Yes, we've developed a list of resources on
this website. In 2002, Iowa City had an average of 1.5% unemployment.
Also check out The University
of Iowa's Dual Career Network.
7. Is it possible to do an international
elective in your program?
Absolutely!
8. What are the fellowship opportunities
available?
We currently have 23 fellows training in our 10 accredited fellowship
programs.
9. Do you have a freestanding children's
hospital?
No, we do not; the University of Iowa Children's Hospital is a state of the art pediatric facility
integrated within the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. A hospital
within a hospital, University of Iowa Children's Hospital benefits from the sophisticated services and comprehensive
resources of University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, which is consistently ranked as one of America's Best
Hospitals by US News and World Report. As part of an internationally
recognized university teaching hospital, we have access to diagnostic
equipment and treatment modalities that are not found at many freestanding
children's hospitals. Clinics that are part of University of Iowa Children's Hospital are easily identified
by the quilt logo.
10. Is this a family friendly program?
Yes! We love children and support residents in their efforts to balance
work with family life. We have several dual physician resident and faculty
families and understand the stresses. Women residents receive up to 6
weeks of paid maternity leave after delivery; we have a Parental Leave Elective that can be incorporated into this time if the resident chooses, so as not to use any of their vacation time for maternity leave. Men get 5 working days
off for paternity leave. The house staff health insurance policy provides
full coverage for spouses and children, and all medications are free. There are several childcare facilities
near the hospital and one on-site. The training program also has activities
during the year where all family members are invited, i.e. the resident
picnic.
11. Is there sufficient patient volume
so that I can have multiple exposures to a variety of diseases?
With 4,000 annual inpatient pediatric admissions and 110,000 clinic
visits you will see plenty of the most common illnesses and trauma that
children experience and plenty of the "zebra's" as well. Our
clinical practice serves the general pediatric health care needs of the
local community and the subspecialty needs of the region. Our department
receives referrals for specialized services from neighboring states as
well.
Patients are referred from across the nation for certain specialized
pediatric treatments and services, such as bone marrow transplantation,
pediatric cardiology, otolaryngology, neurosurgery and orthopaedics.
In addition, we conduct clinics in other cities and towns throughout
Iowa. Our patients represent all pediatric age groups and all socioeconomic
strata and they present with virtually all acute and chronic conditions.
12. What is the program's balance between
primary and specialty care?
We seek to provide each resident physician with a sufficiently broad
experience that he or she can choose wisely among all the pediatric options
to pursue a career in the general practice of pediatrics, a subspecialty
service career or an academic career. About two thirds of our graduates
go on to practice general pediatrics while one third go on to fellowships
in pediatric subspecialties or academic pediatrics.
13. What's the call schedule like?
As a resident in our program, you will not be on-call more often than
every fourth night and usually less often. Home call occurs every 5-7
nights on outpatient rotations and you will have one elective month with
no call at all per year.
14. Do you have a research project requirement
for graduation?
While we do not have a requirement to complete a research project,
we do encourage residents to work on bench or clinical research projects
along with our faculty. The Department of Pediatrics ranks in the top 10 in public
institutions for NIH funding and we have 2 Howard Hughes research investigators
in our department. Two of our residents have won the prestigious Society
of Pediatric Research's Resident Research Awards in the last few of
years.
15. What's Iowa got that other programs
don't?
- While pediatricians are generally nice people, the University of Iowa Children's Hospital pediatric faculty are uniformly wonderful people, and exceptionally dedicated teachers too.
- All the subspecialties are represented in our training program, including
sports medicine, rheumatology and adolescent medicine. We also have
a child abuse specialist and an epileptologist.
- We have a new bone marrow transplant unit and brand new PICU and NICU.
- Our pediatric surgery colleagues are ranked in the top ten nationally.
- Iowa City is a highly intellectual community with premier arts events
that are accessible to residents in terms of cost and location.
- Even before the new work hour rules, our residents worked 60-65 hours
per week.
- We have an outstanding school system for children in grades K-12.
- A great training program and a high quality of life at an affordable
price.
- You'll have opportunities to meet the next President of the
United States.
If you have additional questions please contact our program coordinator
at jefri-palermo@uiowa.edu
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