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Iowa Neurology
Started by Suzuki
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Just got a letter from their PD last week via FedEx stating that the dynamic head of the Dept., Dr. Damasio, is leaving for USC. It'll still remain an extremely strong clinical program, but you'd need to be o.k. going to a program which will be in transition to some degree. I personally loved it there, and they've done the most recruitment out of any school I've visited so far. They even started a job search for my wife, for God's sake (!), and the chief has been in close contact, too. Dr. Rodnitzky, the PD, is wonderful and Iowa will remain near the top of my list despite the issues with the Chairmanship. Hope that helps...
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erkin777 said:
Iowa compared favorably to other programs I visited. They have sub specialists in just about every area. It seems like a great program for clinical neurology. Neuro admits 1,500 patients/yr and has about 15,000 clinic visits/yr. In 2002-03, they did 3,938 EEGs and 11,136 EMGs. Those #s seemed pretty impressive compared to many other programs. The Neurology Dept. is # 28 for NIH funding. The hospital is large, 772 bed, university owned. From what I remember, uninsured people come from all over the state to receive care at the University hospital, so you would see a ton of good stuff.
Even though Damasio is leaving next July, the department still has about 3 MDs and 10 PhDs that specialize in behavioral neurology or neuropsych. I got the impression that Damasio was not crucial to resident training at Iowa. I dont think his departure will affect the residency program that much; however, I dont know what this will do to Iowas national reputation.
Besides Damasios departure, there were only a few negatives that I noticed. I think they do have an MS clinic, but I think they only have one MS doc and they dont have much in the way of MS research. The other thing is they did not seem to have much neuro-rehab. However, there may be some benefits to this since neuro is doing all the EMGs (no PM&R dept.).
Recent graduates have gone to Duke for neurophys, UCLA for behavioral and Wash U for movement disorders.
Iowa City seems like a fun college town--like a Midwest version of Chapel Hill. The cost of living is low. You could buy a house and live pretty comfortably on a residents salary.
Dr. Rodnitzky is one of the best PDs I have met. Very active, works hard to recruit quality residents and works to keep the current residents happy. The faculty and residents I met were all very nice and I think they would be great to work with.
