Des Moines University students celebrated Match Day on March 21, 2025, when they learned where they’ll serve medical residencies. Des Moines University would, along with the University of Iowa, explore three-year degree programs under proposed legislation. (Photo by Brooklyn Draisey/Iowa Capital Dispatch)
Two Iowa Senate subcommittees have moved ahead House-sent bills aimed at making changes to Iowa’s medical schools to increase opportunities for Iowa students and accelerate their learning.
House File 386, which received signatures from subcommittee members Wednesday morning, would direct the University of Iowa and Des Moines University to conduct a study into potentially shrinking the timeline of some four-year programs to three years.
Keith Saunders, chief government relations officer for the Iowa Board of Regents, said during the meeting the board is generally supportive of the bill but called the term “three year medical school” a “misnomer,” as other shortened medical programs have done so through accelerated degrees.
Generally accelerated medical degree programs have worked in the area of family medicine, Saunders said, which is where the UI would focus its research.
“We’re happy to do the study, happy to provide a feasibility study,” Saunders said. “And again, we’re committed to doing everything possible to get as many health care workers into the workforce as possible.”
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Des Moines University is registered as monitoring the bill, lobbyist Threase Harms said, but the university has requested it be removed from the legislation.
As an institution with no undergraduate programs or residencies, Harms said it would be very difficult to accelerate the university’s programming, especially with the knowledge that DMU did try to implement three-year programs in the 1980s without success.
“DMU is graduating the most family practice medicine doctors in the country,” Harms said. “We pride ourselves on that, and we have them all throughout the state of Iowa, but we just feel like the three-year escalation doesn’t fit with our current structure, and it doesn’t ensure that those doctors are prepared to go out and deliver those services.”
Each of the subcommittee members said they would move the bill forward with plans to introduce an amendment. Sen. Mike Zimmer, D-DeWitt, said he was in favor of removing DMU after hearing Harms’ remarks, but Sen. Mike Klimesh, R-Spillville, said he wasn’t sure if taking the university out was the best idea and it is important to think about potential cost-saving measures of shorter degree programs.
Sen. David Rowley, R-Spirit Lake, said he wants to encourage collaboration while working on the bill.
“We’ve got to be curious and have curiosity to find out how we could do this better, and I think that takes collaboration, working together with all of us in this room, to find some options or some opportunities out there,” Rowley said.
House File 516, which passed a Senate subcommittee Tuesday, would have the Iowa Board of Regents implement a policy requiring the UI doctor of medicine program and college of dentistry enroll cohorts made up of at least 80% resident students or students who attended an Iowa college or university prior to applying.
Saunders said the programs currently have between 70% and 75% resident students enrolled, and the board is supportive of initiatives that will keep more health care professionals in the state.
Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines, said during discussion she has concerns about the bill potentially pushing away students who want to study, and stay, in Iowa.
“I’m willing to sign off on it, but just because somebody didn’t grow up here or go to college here doesn’t mean they don’t have a lot to offer to Iowa,” Trone Garriott said.
Klimesh said he understands where Trone Garriott was coming from in her remarks, but he looks at the legislation as a way to ensure UI medical programs have the best state retention possible. However, he said he plans to introduce an amendment to the bill that would add additional criteria for qualifying students, like those who maybe didn’t grow up in the state but know what rural Iowa is like based on their own upbringing in a neighboring state.
“To be perfectly honest, when I’ve asked folks what the definition of Iowan is, I get air quotes around it sometimes, so I’m not even sure what that is,” Klimesh said. “Maybe defining what an Iowan is and adding additional frameworks might be beneficial.”
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