This week marks the start of a journey for 50 new DMU students in the Physician Assistant program. After three days of orientation, the PA class of 2011 will begin their coursework today.

For many it has been a long road getting to graduate school, and for those 50 students who begin this week, it will be a challenging and demanding two years. But, I’m pretty sure that this group of students is up to the challenge. Before the end of the first day of orientation, there was already a mob of new students trying to buy all their books at Matthew’s Bookstore.

Posted in Current Students, Guest bloggers, Life in Des Moines, New Students, Physician Assistant | 1 Comment

 by Rishi Shah* (11yrs, Downtown School, Des Moines, Iowa)

Did you ever have an opportunity to go see a real heart? Well, I have when we visited Des Moines University (DMU) in 3rd grade. We were greeted by Dr. Matz, who showed us around campus.

Posted in Anatomy, Current Students, Des Moines Events, Guest bloggers, Life in Des Moines | 2 Comments

This past weekend was the annual tulip festival in Pella, Iowa! Pella is a short 45-minute drive from Des Moines and a visit to Tulip Time is a must-do for anybody who loves food, flowers and a bit of history (Pella is a Dutch town full of traditional Dutch architecture and traditions). 

Darcie, Lisa, and I (all from the Enrollment Office) headed to Pella on Saturday to enjoy what the town has to offer.   One of the highlights of our day was food. Pella has a couple of great bakeries where you can pick up some delicious Dutch Letters, Dutch Apple Bread and a variety of other pastries and cookies. Pella is also home to some fabulous meat markets – us ladies all bought home-made beef jerky for our husbands.   And, to top things off, Tulip Time has a ton of food vendors. You can get your typical festival foods – corn dogs, funnel cakes, and other fried foods – but you can also get Dutch treats including poffertjes (similar to little pancakes with powdered sugar, strawberries, and whipped cream) and stroopwafels (thin wafers with melted caramel in the middle).

Posted in Guest bloggers, Life in Des Moines | 3 Comments

guest post by Barb Boose, editor of DMU Magazine

When 14 DMU students, two faculty, two alumni and four others took a medical service trip to El Salvador in March, they took 30 quilts with them, thanks to the Crafting for Charity Club. 

The club was organized last year by DMU employees, all enthusiastic crafters wanting to use their skills to benefit others. Their first project was working with Mercy Hospice in nearby Johnston, Iowa, to help bereaved family members create small scrapbooks about their loved ones. Knowing a DMU group was going to El Salvador, club members asked the University’s Global Health Department whether they would be interested in taking the quilts to local residents.

“They were eager to have them,” says Lana Jackson, the club’s informal chair and the academic secretary for the Osteopathic Manual Medicine Department and College of Osteopathic Medicine. “We were looking to do something to help people – and the whipped cream on top is we get to do it while gabbing with friends.”

Posted in Des Moines Events, DMU Events, Global Health, Guest bloggers, Life in Des Moines | 3 Comments

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that DMU is just 12 blocks away from a renowned art museum. The Des Moines Art Center is less than a mile west of campus on Grand Avenue, yet I rarely visit the museum, despite driving past it every week.

Last night was an exception.  I had the opportunity to head over and listen to a lecture by former Stanford professor and art history expert, Wanda Corn, regarding the famous painting “American Gothic.”  

Posted in Guest bloggers, Life in Des Moines, Prospective Students | 2 Comments

by Barb Boose, DMU Magazine editor

Last summer, Jonathan Thompson, a podiatric medical student at DMU, spent a steamy week in El Salvador, seeing 50 to 70 patients a day. He was one of 14 DMU students on a medical service trip organized by the DMU Global Health Program and the Comandos de Salvamento, a Red Cross-like group that provides medical services to the country’s underserved. He wrote about the experience here in the DMU Blog.

“This is an excellent opportunity to practice and refine the skills learned in our medical education,” says Jonathan, originally from Strawberry Point, Iowa. “But probably the most significant opportunity presented by this trip is the opportunity to help an extremely underserved group of people, some of whom have never received medical care in their lives. Providing this care is a very humbling experience and really allows you to look at life through a different lens.”

Right now, Thompson and Kendall Blair, a DMU osteopathic medical student, are student leaders for another weeklong trip to El Salvador. This time, the group will include Thompson’s father, Craig Thompson, a family physician and DMU alumnus.

Posted in Current Students, Global Health, Guest bloggers, Osteopathic Medicine, Podiatric Medicine, Student Bloggers | 1 Comment