Hi docgeorge,
I'm at Iowa Methodist, so I've heard a bit about this program, being that I'm in the same city.
It's an osteopathic program. Basically, whomever was running the DO surgery program here (I'm sorry I don't know details) pulled out and the residents were left without a program - which was catastrophic, as you can imagine. Mercy hospital, which had been the main hospital for most of the training, decided to pick up the residency, so that folks could finish their training, and for whatever self serving reasons Mercy had as well, I suppose.
We used to work with the Mercy residents when they rotated with us on Pediatric Surgery, until the politics got in the way. In any event, the residents seemed to be very bright, very knowledgable, very capable in the OR. My sense is that the program is in flux, but that the core surgery training is very, very good. I believe you would graduate an experienced and accomplished surgeon, based on what I know about the docs on teaching staff there. I can't comment about the didactics, preparation for boards, so forth, and I doubt that all of that has been defined very well yet.
If you are competitive, it would probably be a safer bet to go with another program. But if you just want to be a surgeon and are willing to gamble a bit, I think you would get good operative exposure here and, with some self motivatin, could make it work.
best of luck