MercyOne Genesis held a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, Sept. 16, to celebrate the expansion and renovation of its Family Medical Center, home of the Family Medicine Residency Program at 1345 W. Central Park Ave., Davenport.
The project – adding 668 square feet to its 10,000-square-foot building -- represents a significant investment in physician education, primary care access, and the future healthcare workforce serving the Quad Cities and surrounding communities. The $2.1-million expansion/renovation project (to be done in summer 2027) will include:
· Two new resident rooms
· Four new exam rooms
· Renovated laboratory space
· Updated front desk and reception areas
The expansion will enhance the learning environment for residents while improving the patient experience and supporting the continued growth of primary care services throughout the region.
“Investing in our Family Medicine Residency Program is an investment in the future of healthcare for our communities,” said Beau Dexter, Vice President of Operations for MercyOne Medical Group. “This expansion strengthens our ability to train exceptional family medicine physicians, improve access to care, and recruit providers who choose to build their careers right here in Iowa.”
The residency program is celebrating its 50th year of training family medicine physicians and remains a cornerstone of primary care development in eastern Iowa, in which it’s graduated 200 medical residents. The new project will enable the program to graduate two additional primary care residents each year, bringing the program total to eight per year, Dexter said.
“In a national shortage of primary care physicians, any ability to grow primary care is extremely beneficial,” he said. “This allows us to grow by two additional physicians every single year. So over a time period, we'll continue to be able to have future pipeline of primary care.”
According to the Iowa Medical Society, the Hawkeye State ranks 44th in the nation in patient-to-physician ratio. The Association of American Medical Colleges says there was a shortage of about 46,000 doctors in the U.S. in 2021. By 2034, that number is expected to climb as high as 124,000, according to the American Medical Association, and up to 48,000 of those will be primary care physicians.
“There's a primary care shortage everywhere,” Dexter said. “We anticipate and look to see future retirements as well as community growth. We believe over the next 10 years we need at least 20 new primary care. Now that means replacing existing and growing future.”
“Primary care here within MercyOne Genesis is the foundation of the health system, and what makes this project so special is that this investment is all about primary care and education for the next generation of family medicine physicians here in the Quad Cities,” he noted at the groundbreaking.
“This year is especially meaningful as we celebrated our Family Medical Center's 50th anniversary this last year. With that 50th anniversary, it is over 50 years of graduating residents into primary care physicians. Over 200 graduates in those 50 years have come from this program, and over 100 of those have stayed here locally in Iowa,” he said.
Two-thirds of Genesis primary care doctors are from this program, Dexter said.
“Those numbers tell a really important story when we think about the residency program, because residencies like ours are one of the most effective ways to recruit and grow primary care in the communities in which we serve,” he said.
“When physicians train here, they grow roots, they bond, and they end up staying within part of the organization, and that is our goal. So projects like these don't happen without the dedication and partnership of many individuals, and I want to recognize those. First is the staff of the residency program, the faculty members, and the residents themselves, as well as our foundation.”
A pipeline to QC medical community
Dr. Gena Benoit, chief medical officer for MercyOne Genesis, is a graduate of University of Iowa Medical School who did her residency there, and spent 20 years on the Genesis residency faculty and then program director.
“It’s a great pipeline to introduce our community and our health system to students who may want to train here and may want to come here and practice someday,” she said. “I'm an example of the formula that has been successful at this residency program for over 50 years now. I'm not the only one. You can look around our health system and our community and see products of this residency program throughout, working in the clinics, working at our hospitals, urgent care, in leadership, in advocacy, whether it's here in our community or around the state.”
“We have physicians throughout the community of all specialties who work to teach these residents. They give freely of their time and expertise, and they really value creating family doctors who will stay in the community and be their partners and colleagues in the future,” Benoit said.
“And the other thing that drew me was the health system itself. To have a hospital system that supports a program and sees it as the shining star, something to be very proud of, and likes to home-grow our own family doctors and staff our clinics and our hospitals was truly amazing,” she said, noting the program began in Davenport in 1972, and graduated its first residents in 1975.
“Much has changed in medicine and in family medicine. But this program continues to evolve and grow and change with that, and they've been very successful at that,” Benoit said. “This is one of the things we're most proud of at MercyOne Genesis here in Davenport, and we're very excited to continue to develop this program and grow with the support of our sponsors and the community. And we'll continue to produce exceptional family physicians who are going to care for our community here locally as well as beyond.”
The project will also help attract medical students to the Davenport program, Dexter said. Each residency is three years long.
“This program has a long-term legacy of attracting and retaining. Our focus has always been to continue to stay with the latest technology, robotic services,” he said. “Not only will the facility be a better renovated facility for those patients, but truly regardless if the primary care stay with Genesis, if they join in the community, it's still a benefit to the community to have more access, which is truly the biggest opportunity here is again more access for primary care.
“Primary care is really that gateway into the organization. It's the front steps, it's the front sidewalk into the organization,” Dexter added. “Establishing the primary care is super important for ongoing maintaining of health, and then our job is to have the specialists to be able to help line up and support those primary care. Here at MercyOne Genesis, we have an easy physician finder. It's called 421-DOCS. Any patient can call it to be established with primary care here locally, trying to make it an easy button for the community in getting established with primary care.”
Genesis attracts residents from medical schools throughout Iowa, Illinois, and the Midwest, he noted.
“The program has really done a great job of being able to recruit residents and choose to live here in the Quad Cities. Again, as soon as they get their roots here, they love the community,” Dexter said. “It's a great community to grow up in, raise family, and then they typically end up staying.”
“I think the most exciting is being able to renovate the location as well as being able to recruit additional residents to care for the community,” he said. “This has been a gold star within MercyOne to have a residency program here that has a retention rate like we do of keeping residents in the community to practice. And so any investment we can make in that future primary care access is a benefit for the community and MercyOne.”
The family residency program offers specialized training opportunities including a rural track, sports medicine, international medical missions, and other advanced experiences. More than half of program graduates continue to practice in Iowa, and 63% of MercyOne Genesis Family Medicine physicians are graduates of the residency program
The MercyOne Genesis Family Medicine Residency Program is an accredited three-year program that trains family physicians who provide comprehensive, patient-centered care. For 50 years, the program has served as a key source of primary care physicians for Iowa and the QC region, preparing generations of physicians to meet the evolving healthcare needs of the communities they serve.
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