For young foot and ankle doctors, Fort Dodge is a place to hone their skills and prepare for their careers,

UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center provides one of just three podiatric medicine residency programs in the state. Each year since the late 1970s, a new podiatrist has graduated from the program.

“We’re doing our best to put forth graduates who will have a lifetime of helping people and will be well-trained and well-prepared,” said Dr. Mark Hartman, a podiatrist with Midwest Foot & Ankle Center, who has been the director of the program since 2018.

All of the residents are recent graduates of podiatric medical schools. There are three residents at any time in Fort Dodge. Each year, one graduates from the program and a new one enters it.

The residents are selected through a nationwide process that is apparently unique to the medical field. Hartman said every year, there is a day or two in which leaders of residency programs interview potential residents. These interviews are all done at one location. For example, Hartman said one year the interviews were done at a hotel near Chicago O’Hare International Airport in Illinois.

Following the interviews, the students submit their choices for residency programs to a central clearinghouse. The leaders of the residency programs submit their picks for students to the same clearinghouse. All of the information is entered into a computer program which matches residents to programs. The matches are released in March.

Hartman said during their first year in Fort Dodge the residents work in many different areas of the hospital, such as general surgery, emergency medicine, vascular surgery, orthopedics and anesthesia.

“Everybody in the hospital is great about spending time with them,” Hartman said. ” We’re really quite blessed that everyone at the hospital has been receptive to teaching.”

In their second and third years, the residents spend more time on podiatry. They make the rounds at the hospital, checking on all patients with podiatric issues. When the time comes, they make sure those patients are ready to be discharged. And they work under the supervision of Hartman and other local podiatrists.

Hartman estimated that the program has had close to 50 graduates since it started.