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Education

The Department of Internal Medicine is fully committed to the complete spectrum of medical education for medical student didactic and clinical education, resident training, fellow training as well as in-house, local, regional, and national continuing medical education programs for physicians in practice. Departmental faculty played crucial roles in the total redesign of the College of Medicine curriculum, which was begun in 1991 and implemented in 1995 and is housed today in the impressive, new Medical Education and Research Facility (MERF) at the center of the health science campus.

In a bold new approach to student life and education, the UI College of Medicine student body was reorganized into four Communities, each populated by a heterogeneous selection of students from each year of study and provided a home in MERF. Two communities are directed by Department of Internal Medicine faculty. Department faculty have also provided critical leadership in the successful creation of unique new training programs including the Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship Training Program for medical students; the NIH K30 Iowa Scholars in Clinical Investigation Program for postdoctoral trainees and junior faculty; the Graduate Program in Translational Biomedical Research and the Medical Scientist Training Program for M.D./Ph.D. students.

The addition of a Director of Curriculum Development in the department assists significantly in the departmental effort to create links between medical student, housestaff, and CME programs in an endeavor to cultivate life-long learning habits among students at every stage in their career. One outcome of this new direction was creation of a teaching resident rotation within the Internal Medicine Residency Training Program. As a complement to the existing research pathway, this unique rotation gives residents the opportunity to develop teaching skills in preparation for an academic career. This and other residency training innovations make it important to note that the UI Department of Internal Medicine Residency Training Program fills each of its categorical and preliminary internship positions. To further underscore the educational quality of the program, 98% of residents have passed the ABIM certifying examination over the past 6 years.