As director of the Residency Program in the Department of Internal Medicine, it’s my honor to introduce you to the array of opportunities that exist at the University of Iowa. We believe we can provide you with the kind of individualized instruction and experiences that will help you transition from one phase of your professional career to the next. We aim to produce graduates who excel as clinicians, physician scientists, and teachers.
At our world-renowned residency, we offer:
- broad clinical experiences across both inpatient and ambulatory settings
- access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment
- dedicated teaching faculty who are thought-leaders in their fields
- strong camaraderie with colleagues
- house-staff research opportunities
- development of teaching skills
- career counseling
We have a strong leadership team made up of outstanding associate program directors, motivated and inspired chief residents, creative and enthusiastic faculty, and dependable and involved site directors. Each of us works tirelessly to optimize the training experience for our resident physicians. Our program enables house staff to develop excellent clinical skills, while also preparing them to meet long-term career goals.
While we have a long tradition of training outstanding clinicians, we also continually work to keep our curriculum and methods cutting-edge. The program leadership works closely with chief residents and other core educators and invites input from residents in designing and refining innovative programs. For example, we’ve recently instituted a “4+1 program” that allows residents an improved ambulatory experience, guided career and mentor choice at the same time maintaining a balanced work-life experience. This allows residents to immediately begin exploring the subspecialty that interests them while also exposing them to fields they may not have previously considered.
Another example of our unique and cutting-edge program is our Master Clinician Program/Clinical Reasoning Curriculum. A pillar of our educational focus has been to teach our residents clinical reasoning and problem solving. Our residency produces life-long learners capable of unraveling the most impenetrable puzzles. No matter a resident’s area of career focus, our residency program significantly raises his or her clinical reasoning performance level.
We believe that our residents should not only be life-long learners of medicine but life-long teachers of medicine. To that end, we have developed the Teaching Skills Curriculum, which many residents find complements their formal training and enhances their clinical skills. One career path a resident may consider is becoming a clinician educator and thus may be interested in pursuing a Masters in Medical Education.
We understand that every resident has unique interests and career goals, and we have developed our training program to meet as many specifications as possible. No matter the resident’s long-term career goals, our residency program taps into a wealth of knowledge and experience that exists in our department’s faculty, creating specific mentorship experiences, and offering residents career-shaping opportunities.
If you are looking for a program that will challenge you and provide you with the experience and guidance to prepare you for the next step in your career, we hope you will continue to explore the University of Iowa’s Internal Medicine Residency program. If you have any questions about any aspect or whether our program is right for you, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Watch Dr. Suneja's 2020 Carver College of Medicine Commencement Address: