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Letter: Iowa way too conservative for young doctors
Op-Ed · March 12, 2025
Recently Gov. Reynolds outlined a plan to increase the number of doctors completing their residencies in rural Iowa hospitals.
The hope is that those doctors would also choose to remain in rural Iowa.
This is a noble goal; unfortunately, it is doomed to failure because Reynolds misunderstands the reluctance of doctors to practice in rural Iowa.
Reynolds believes the shortage of doctors can be solved with financial incentives.
While financial incentives might be a factor at the margin, the core problem is cultural.
Young doctors will want to do their residencies at a large urban hospital. The reasons are obvious and include the greater depth and breadth of experiences they can get at an urban hospital; greater access to cutting edge medical research; and greater opportunities for professional networking.
Beyond those reasons, Iowa’s hard turn towards extreme cultural conservatism makes Iowa an unattractive place for young doctors.
Why would a young Ob/Gyn want to practice in Iowa with its extreme anti-abortion law?
And then there’s Iowa’s flirtations with anti-mRNA vaccine legislation.
Doctors also want to socialize with fellow professionals, which they are unlikely to find outside of large urban hospitals.
So if Reynolds really wants to recruit rural doctors, then she needs to leave behind the culture war baggage.
It may play well with the base, but not with educated young doctors.
This is especially important when it comes to the rise in anti-immigrant xenophobia in some of Iowa’s rural areas.
A lot of young doctors happen to be immigrants from Third World countries.
In short, if Reynolds wants to make Iowa more inviting for young doctors, then Iowa needs to shed it’s growing image as a land of knuckle-draggers.
Mike Johnson
West Branch
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