ISU Medical School
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There is a Biomedical Sciences department in Vet Med. Which I think is mostly a physiology department. It's just very hard to have a viable department for all medical-related research if it's going to be 1 or 2 professors in microbiology, a couple in genetics, 1 in biomedical engineering etc. They just don't have enough shared research interest and speak the same language. Somebody studying a certain human infectious disease is better surrounded with livestock microbiologists. Somebody interested in surgical robotics is better around other robotics groups.
There are certainly some limitations in terms of the ability to bring in the big NIH research dollars. Although Iowa State does very well if you compare to any other university that does not have a med school. I really think the best way would be more cross-collaborations between Iowa and Iowa State or DMU and Iowa State. Figure out a way to have a few clinical faculty and rotations for DMU or Iowa students at Mary Greeley or work to make a hospital in Des Moines more academically focused. Then those clinical faculty would be available to ISU as research collaborators.
I think having an identity as a University is really important, and if we get too broad with what we offer we lose that identity.
Double down on STEM and Ag IMO.
Double down on STEM and Ag IMO.
Hi, I might be able to answer some questions the OP raised about eventual feasibility of a med school at ISU from an undergraduate perspective. I am actually graduating from ISU in two weeks with a degree in Biology and was Pre-Med until last year (switched to Pre-PA and will be attending next year).
Adding a medical school would fundamentally change how ISU approaches its undergraduate studies, and in my opinion not for the better. ISU's biology/chemistry/etc departments are much more focused on other areas than that of medicine, while recognizing that many students are focused on career paths toward medicine. This allows them to show off what they do and possibly attract aspiring scientists to their field that may have never heard of it. This to me is an oversight in UofIs undergraduate education (they offer a Pre-Med degree, ISU does not) and is one of the reasons I chose ISU. I don't think pulling faculty away from the research they do, or hiring other faculty that do focus more on medical aspects of biology/chemistry/etc. would be a smart choice.
Plus there are all the other reasons as to why it doesn't make sense. This is just an extra perspective I can add.
Adding a medical school would fundamentally change how ISU approaches its undergraduate studies, and in my opinion not for the better. ISU's biology/chemistry/etc departments are much more focused on other areas than that of medicine, while recognizing that many students are focused on career paths toward medicine. This allows them to show off what they do and possibly attract aspiring scientists to their field that may have never heard of it. This to me is an oversight in UofIs undergraduate education (they offer a Pre-Med degree, ISU does not) and is one of the reasons I chose ISU. I don't think pulling faculty away from the research they do, or hiring other faculty that do focus more on medical aspects of biology/chemistry/etc. would be a smart choice.
Plus there are all the other reasons as to why it doesn't make sense. This is just an extra perspective I can add.
The real bottleneck in the system is the number of residencies.
Rather than talk about that national issue (which is a really long and complex topic that could become very political quickly), we should talk about Iowa.
https://mk0nrmp3oyqui6wqfm.kinstacd.../Match-Rate-by-Specialty-and-State-2019-1.pdf
According to that document, there were 252 residency slots in Iowa for 2019. More than half of those were in comparatively "unsexy" and low-paying specialties such as family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry, which are really important to have if you want practicing physicians taking care of your population but are not the ones known for bringing in bonanzas of federal and private research dollars to a state.
Your numbers here --
Say that the state is already exporting medical residents on a net basis. The 370 in those classes are going to be in excess of the ~250 slots, and those slots are still going to be desired by at least some out-of-staters (e.g., people who went to college or medical school out of Iowa even if they grew up in Iowa, people who maybe have a spouse who wants to move back, international applicants, etc.), so many of those UOI and DMU medical school graduates would be leaving anyways. Doctors tend to "stick" around their residency and fellowship locations, though not always, so many of them are never coming back. If they match in Chicago, chances are they end up in Illinois.
Adding another... oh, I do not know, 100+ to be viable as its own school... from a hypothetical Iowa State program only worsens that calculus. Iowa just does not have much for residencies because it does not have much more teaching hospitals or a healthcare cluster in its major cities the way other states do. I figure if the need is sensed there by the state, then it just means admit more people to Iowa, not open up a new one.
An aside -- my wife's medical school receives 5,000+ applications per year. Of those, they interview 440 applicants and accept 120. That is roughly a 9% chance of even landing an interview and 27% of receiving an invitation after the interview. My wife was #120 of her class to receive her invitation when she made it. She received the call from the program director a week before classes started (she was all set at a less prestigious program) and had to break a lease to make it happen, but it was worth it in the end.
Ones not too dissimilar to the ones for undergraduate programs --
-- perceived need for more doctors in the future with an aging population (even if an aging population needs home health aides more than MDs)
-- students willing to pay for it/federal loans making it easier to finance and the perception that it is always going to be "worth it" no matter what
-- academic prestige of operating a medical school, as an offering to your own undergraduates (e.g., Stanford is NOTORIOUS for heavily favoring its own undergrads in medical school applications, making the place all the more attractive to top-flight talent coming out of high schools) upon their graduations, and a potential cash cow if it can attract private and federal research dollars to the school
-- some increase in the number of PGY-1 residencies slots over time, though not really enough to keep up with the pace of newly-minted MDs and DOs and the demand for those slots from applicants coming from other countries
-- hopefully builds up a wealthy and influential alumni base of rich doctors
-- some of them are, however, not even trying to go the prestige route, instead building up institutes designed around community and primary care and funneling physicians towards those kinds of residencies, which are way less competitive and help train doctors to fill the needs of rural, county, and community health facilities that need it the most
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I think that statement is already outdated thanks to the Ivy's $50mm donation, Gerdin expansion, strengthening ties with Des Moines/Minneapolis/Chicago. Ivy now has a top 50 MBA, Tippie shut it's full-time MBA down. Ivy's added multiple new degrees in the past two years alone, and SCM and Entrepreneurship are top in the nation. Finance/Accounting/MIS students seem to do very well and usually find themselves in Minneapolis or Chicago post grad. Not to mention Des Moines is finally retaining some very strong students. The new Innovation Center will help Ivy to lean on the strengths of the university's science departments. Times are changing.
Look at FY 2014 projections- 180 Students and 90 Faculty. WTF!!!
4 year colleges are pricing themselves out of business.
I'm a CPA with accounting and finance degrees from ISU and would put ISU at #3 in the state at best for accounting.
I don’t find this true at all. The difference between individuals is far greater than he difference between programs. Every undergrad has about the same basic requirements.
Maybe the gap we’re proud of is our post grad programs? I don’t have experience there.
I work with crappy ISU grads, great UI grads, and vice versa. Honestly the best grads as a whole seem to be Michigan Tech and Univ Wisc - Platteville.
I just always roll my eyes a bit at claiming we’re awesome at such a common, standardized degree program.
Ivy certainly isn't #1 in accounting, I'd agree. That being said, there's not exactly massive benefit in being a marginally better accounting program within the state. It brings neither prestige nor research dollars. An accounting major from a small regional university can get a CPA and good job at a Big 4 firm just as easily as someone from a top public. Better to focus on other areas.
I am terrified we are not an AAU school at some point.
This Wikipedia summary about why Nebraska-Lincoln got dropped --
Removed from the AAU.[26] Chancellor Harvey Perlman said that the lack of an on-campus medical school (the Medical Center is a separate campus of the University of Nebraska system) and the AAU's disregarding of USDA-funded agricultural research in its metrics hurt the university's performance in the association's internal ranking system.[11] In 2010 Perlman stated that had Nebraska not been part of the AAU, the Big Ten Conference would likely not have invited it to become the athletic conference's 12th member.[8]
Sounds like that could easily be us, as well. Sounds like the way they count their numbers, too, disadvantages agricultural/land-grant colleges *and* any hypothetical medical school would need to be closely abutting existing campus facilities in Ames, not in Des Moines, in order for it to count. They do not let UNL count the institutions in Omaha for some reason. All that being said, I just do not know if there is a viable path for an ISU College of Medicine. We should have done it 15 years ago if we were going to.
This Wikipedia summary about why Nebraska-Lincoln got dropped --
Removed from the AAU.[26] Chancellor Harvey Perlman said that the lack of an on-campus medical school (the Medical Center is a separate campus of the University of Nebraska system) and the AAU's disregarding of USDA-funded agricultural research in its metrics hurt the university's performance in the association's internal ranking system.[11] In 2010 Perlman stated that had Nebraska not been part of the AAU, the Big Ten Conference would likely not have invited it to become the athletic conference's 12th member.[8]
Sounds like that could easily be us, as well. Sounds like the way they count their numbers, too, disadvantages agricultural/land-grant colleges *and* any hypothetical medical school would need to be closely abutting existing campus facilities in Ames, not in Des Moines, in order for it to count. They do not let UNL count the institutions in Omaha for some reason. All that being said, I just do not know if there is a viable path for an ISU College of Medicine. We should have done it 15 years ago if we were going to.
If we have sub-par medical and law schools, we're not going to be an AAU university very much longer...
You're right the physical building is getting an upgrade, but Tippie has a lot of programs in place that ISU can't match. As for accounting, ISU isn't close. And for Finance it's probably even worse. The others such as Supply Chain and MIS I can't speak for as much. Overall Tippie has a much deeper alumni base in target cities as well. Reputation's are also heavily slanted towards Iowa. I hope you are right that times are changing, my loyalty lies with ISU, but you can't compare the two at the present time.
This has always been exactly what worries me. If the university continues to only double down on its strengths without innovating and expanding to other domains, we will certainly lose our place in the AAU eventually.
The truth is, Iowa State is a very successful university because it went beyond it's humble beginnings as a small land grant mechanical/agricultural college. Why stop now? It's not zero sum, ISU can be great in it's traditional domains of expertise while continuing to expand itself into a full, rounded, global university.
Here is the list of AAU schools who *do not* have a medical school (marked with a red X in the next-to-last column) and *do not* have a engineering program (a red X in the last column, and only three schools manage to have neither somehow).
Some of you probably know more about the rankings for engineering programs on here than I do, but looking at that list says to me you need to have a top-tier engineering and science program to stay on the list without a medical school. Places such as CalTech, CMU, Georgia Tech, Rice, and MIT certainly fit the bill. If Iowa State does not stay on that same tier, or at least on the one below it, then it is probably toast for the AAU without a medical school, even if it is not a particularly good one compared to Iowa or Creighton.
Seems you need to be truly elite on the engineering/science front if you are going to make it without a medical school. I do not know if the College of Engineering in Ames is strong enough to do that on its own, looking at the list.
You're certainly right, but there's a great change happening in two of the three cities that really matter for Iowa State: Des Moines and Minneapolis. ISU is slowly becoming the bigger name in the Twin Cities, and that's been happening for a while now. Des Moines metro is obviously shifting as well. Chicago will always be more yellow and black, but there's no denying that more Chicagoland suburbanites are choosing ISU than a decade or two ago.
Thanks for showing this, @Sigmapolis. Iowa State has been looking more and more out-of-place in the AAU for the past couple decades. You'd think this would make the university nervous.
Whatever momentum a university has academically, it's all but certain that the momentum will disappear completely upon getting the boot from the AAU.
A med school, even a low prestige one, guarantees research dollars, which factor heavily into AAU decisions on who stays and who goes. And you're right, ISU Engineering does not have the national reputation of those other programs listed - not even close. The university cannot rest it's fate on engineering.
