I never had any dealings with Indiana, so I don't have anything to say about them. Iowa, despite the fact that it is indeed in Iowa, seemed like a great program. I interviewed there and was impressed with the people and the atmosphere. I remember them talking about how great it was that the OR's were run by anesthesia and that they had a night float system, 2 things that I don't have in my current program that I can now appreciate how nice it would be. Night float would make life easier as a resident, but doesn't really reflect how PP works, so that can be viewed as a positive or negative. Having anesthesia run the OR's is something that would potentially solve many of the headaches that I deal with on a daily basis.
Positives:
1) OR's run by anesthesia
2) Night float
3) BIG 10 country so I could easily get the BIG10 Network and occasionally catch an Ohio State game in person. OH-IO!
4) The residents seemed like a close group training for and competing in obstacle runs together.
The 3 negatives that I took away from their program were:
1) the football stadium is across the road from the hospital essentially eliminating any space for hospital parking. You had to park down the road and get shuttled to the hospital. Extra commute time is a big deal to me.
2) they didn't allow external moonlighting which I thought I wanted (although in 3.5 yrs I've not yet done it, but I will start in a couple weeks).
3) It is still in Iowa, and I have no idea what else is in Iowa.
All that being said, I ranked them highly. I put my programs in 4 tiers. They were one of 3 programs in my top tier. It seemed that the residents were mostly married with kids, something that is probably necessary as the area didn't look like a dating paradise by any means. I also recall them having an extremely good ICU training program. That is about the extent of what I can remember. I hope this helps, or better yet someone from Iowa responds and gives you some actual details.
