Our new colleagues

On February 1, Mercy Iowa City will become part of University of Iowa Health Care as our new downtown campus, a great opportunity for growth and innovation and a new chapter as we become a comprehensive health care system. Over the last six weeks, we have taken many administrative steps to integrate our new colleagues from Mercy. From my interactions, I can say that “we from UIHC” have been met with enthusiasm and appreciation by our new colleagues. In the next weeks, we will introduce you to many of them.

Despite competition in some medical subspecialties in the recent past, there has always been more that unites us than divides us. In 1873, not long after four Catholic nuns from the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Iowa City to open a new hospital, some of the eight faculty members in the College of Medicine at the University of Iowa reached out. The college was only about three years old in its current form and needed a hospital where their medical students—a few dozen young men and women, it should be noted—could train. A formal partnership began between the new Mercy Hospital and the university. That union lasted for about a dozen years until the two institutions parted ways and the university opened its own hospital.

Though that formal partnership came to an end, a close relationship between University of Iowa Health Care and Mercy Iowa City has remained. There are many ties that have connected us over the last 150-plus years, not least of which is that the majority of the physicians, nurses, advanced practice providers, and physician and nursing assistants working at Mercy all trained in varying amounts right here at UIowa. On a very practical level, that meant clinicians who graduated from the University of Iowa and went “across the river” did not stop knowing us.

One of those physicians who will join us next week, Dr. John Kelley, tells a story about a time not long after he first started practicing internal medicine in Bloomfield, a southeastern Iowa community. A graduate of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine and our residency program in the early ‘70s, Dr. Kelley says he called his former instructors here when he needed some advice. But once when a return call came from Dr. Gerald DiBona, Dr. Kelley jokes that he was “terrified.” (An exemplary nephrologist and now emeritus professor, Dr. DiBona was an architect of our relationship with the Iowa City VA as well as a rigorous instructor.) Dr. Kelley said he remembered just how challenging Dr. DiBona could be on medical students. And yet, Kelley says, that consultation phone call—physician to physician—was very pleasant. “Dr. DiBona couldn’t have been more helpful or nicer. I’ll never forget it.” Dr. Kelley can list off many names from our department’s past that he remembers from medical school and residency. “I’ve had the great privilege of knowing wonderful people at the university.”

Although this will be Dr. Kelley’s first time on faculty, another graduate of Iowa and of our residency, Dr. Craig Champion will rejoin our ranks next week. Originally hired after his Chief Resident year by then-Chair Dr. James Clifton, Dr. Champion says he loved teaching, working with residents, and even the overnights in the hospital on call. But, in the end, he says a faculty member at the time—Dr. Walter Kirkendall—told him if he “was to survive in medicine,” he needed “a gimmick.” He said he did a little research with Infectious Diseases but “wasn’t very good at it.” Thankfully, our department has gotten a lot better about mentoring junior faculty since those days. Dr. Champion instead left and joined Towncrest Internal Medicine, which is where Dr. Kelley also landed.

They both built strong roots in the community and a long list of patients, many of whom they continue to see and will continue to see. That practice was eventually acquired by Mercy Iowa City in 2015, so we know this is not the first time Drs. Kelley or Champion have been through a transition like this. Dr. Champion says his decision to stay on then was the same as his decision to stay on with us. He wanted to make sure that his patients got the same care that they have gotten used to.

You can read longer profiles of these two physicians here. Dr. Kelley said that he is relieved that Iowa’s bid last fall eventually won out. “Iowa has been extremely good to Mercy Hospital. In their time of need, they really came forward.” He has also been grateful to the individuals who have been in contact with him through this transition period. “Kevin Glenn has been great, Kristin (Goedken) has just been so helpful and responsive.” I am also grateful to those two for their leadership, and that of so many others in our department, these last few months.

The decades of care these two have delivered and the experience they will bring to our department is part of why I am so confident that this next phase of our journey together is going to be successful. There have been and are going to be bumps along the way, but I believe if we keep that same goal that Dr. Champion and Dr. Kelley share—delivering excellent care to all our patients—we will not fail. I am excited to see where we go next.