Des Moines University students learn their residency program at Match Day celebration
Des Moines University students learned their medical residency program at a DMU Match Day celebration on March 21, 2025. (Photo by Brooklyn Draisey/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
A crowd of students, their families and friends crowded into a room Friday at Des Moines University Medicine & Health Sciences, chatter filling the air as anticipation grew. Students fiddled with white envelopes that held the answer to the question of their future.
David Connett, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine at DMU, stood before the room to toast the students during the university's first in-person Match Day celebration. Students were notified Monday if they were selected for a residency program and had been eagerly awaiting the news of where they will go to continue their health care training. They clinked glasses before watching the clock count down to 11 a.m., when they could open their acceptance letters.
'It's been a minimum of eight years — four years of college, four years of medical school — to get to this moment that'll happen in the next 15 minutes, and I wanted just to go ahead and wish you all both a fruitful personal life and professional life moving forward,' Connett said. 'Again, I can tell you, after practicing medicine for 40 years, it was absolutely worth it.'
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For Carina Hansen, the biggest feeling that followed her from Monday to Friday was relief — relief that she got a placement at all, as psychiatry is a field growing in popularity with not enough new residency slots opening up to accommodate demand. She learned on Match Day she was selected for the psychiatry residency program at the University of South Dakota, her top choice.
The match process starts in the prior summer and fall when students start applying to programs across the U.S., Hansen said. Interviews take place throughout the winter, with students able to rank the programs they've interviewed for and vice-versa for the residencies. If a student isn't matched after this process, they can apply for programs left open.
Having grown up in Cedar Falls, Hansen said she's always wanted to stay and help people in the Midwest. She was happy to see she had matched, as there were only 12 psychiatry residencies with open slots left across the U.S. for those who didn't.
'I'm very excited. We need more people in medicine in general, and definitely in psych in the Midwest,' Hansen said. 'So that's been my goal for a long time, and I'm happy I'm able to play a part in that.'
Connett said the college had a 99% match rate for this year's class, with 33 out of 200 students placed in Iowa hospitals and clinics. 'Many more' students wanted to stay in the state than there were residency slots available, he said, a problem that he's hoping to address with support from the state.
'My goal is to create more residencies so we have more opportunities to match more students,' Connett said.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said during her 2025 Condition of the State address in January a lack of residency slots means people are losing out on giving Iowa a chance, as many physicians choose to practice where they completed their residency.
Connett said Reynolds and the Legislature have been very open to expanding residencies in the state, citing a number provided by Reynolds in her address that 70% of the physicians who attended medical school and completed their residency in Iowa stay in Iowa to practice.
A Medicaid graduate medical education program Reynolds introduced in her address would bring in an expected $150 million in federal funding to form as many as 115 residency slots at 14 Iowa hospitals and train around 460 physicians over a four-year period. Companion bills in the House and Senate with Reynolds's proposal passed out of appropriations subcommittees this week.
Many hospitals without residency programs are unaware of their ability to form a program and the 'potential' they bring in terms of student success and workforce benefits, Connett said, and he has met with some to convey this.
'We're trying to recruit people from Iowa in the first place,' Connett said. 'So that is a strategic imperative for us, is to make sure that I have people from Iowa to come here.'
Chance Johnson, a native of New Hampton, Iowa, also received news Friday that he had matched with his top residency program at UnityPoint Des Moines Emergency Medicine. He completed rotations at the emergency medicine department in his third and fourth years at DMU and said he has a great relationship with the faculty and staff there.
He is one of five DMU students matched to emergency medicine residency programs in Iowa, according to information provided by DMU Director of Marketing and Communications Denise Lamphier. Until UnityPoint Des Moines launched its program last year, Johnson said, the only emergency medical residency program in the state was at the University of Iowa.
The new program has already made a difference in getting more students interested in emergency medicine, Johnson said, as some of the people he worked with at the hospital system were also involved with DMU in some way.
'I think it's a great thing to start making more spots here in Iowa so we really can solve some of these problems by having more physicians in the state,' Johnson said.
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