Central Region
Missouri
Great Lakes Region
Indiana
Cascades Region
Washington
Cy-Hawk Region
Iowa
Pacific Region
Washington
Match #260311
Internship positions available: 1
Residency/Job Positions Available: 1
Our Mission
Broadlawns Medical Center strives to build a healthy community in which there is accessible, cost-effective and high-quality patient care for all.
About Our Site
Broadlawns Medical Center is a safety net county hospital in Des Moines, Iowa that offers comprehensive delivery for mental health services in Central Iowa. We offer an array of potential experiences including outpatient, inpatient, community services, substance abuse, pain clinic, obstetrics, crisis, oncology, pediatrics, geriatrics, med/surg, emergency department, urgent care, and sleep. Specifically, outpatient mental health services include individual therapy, group therapy, psychiatry, psychological evaluation, outpatient addiction treatment, and behavioral health urgent care. The inpatient mental health unit has 44 beds, including a 14-bed unit focused on treating major depression. Community based services include integrated health home (IHH), positive alternatives to hospitalization (PATH), residential group homes, service coordination, and supported community living (SCL). Crisis services include the mobile crisis team, crisis observation center, and crisis stabilization center.
Training Opportunities
Outpatient Behavioral Health – Adult
In an adult clinical psychology experience, interns will receive training and supervision in psychodiagnostics that will include intellectual and functional, neurocognitive, and psychological assessment of adults aged 18 and older with a variety of emotional and psychological issues. This experience will allow interns to further develop and strengthen their clinical interview skills as well as those skills related to the administration, scoring, and interpretation of various psychological measures. This experience will provide interns the opportunity to synthesize these components of psychodiagnostics into psychological evaluation reports that are designed to answer referral question(s) that are commonly presented to clinical and counseling psychologists in an outpatient mental health setting.
In addition, interns will receive training and supervision in psychotherapy. Interns will have opportunity to offer individual, couples, family, and group psychotherapy to patients with a myriad of emotional and psychological issues in an outpatient mental health setting. This experience will also provide interns with the opportunity to complete treatment planning with patients and their collaterals designed to assist patients to enhance their emotional and psychological functioning. This experience will also include opportunity to work with a multidisciplinary mental health team in this process of helping patients to achieve their treatment goals. Interns will have opportunity to advance their consultation skills through their experience in working with a multidisciplinary mental health team.
Outpatient Behavioral Health – Pediatric
The pediatric clinical psychology rotation aims to prepare trainees to function as a pediatric psychologist in various settings, including medical centers, hospitals and schools. Trainees could expect advanced training and experiences in autism and developmental assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with challenging behaviors including those diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and other developmental disorders such as intellectual disability.
Training in assessment typically includes the administration, scoring and interpretation of critical instruments designed to detect various developmental disorders. Instruments may include the ADOS-2, various intellectual assessments and academic assessments. As for intervention practices trainees can expect to apply behavioral principles to conceptualization of cases. Trainees will be able to choose from individual therapy, group therapy and or parent training. Trainees will also learn to integrate their findings into a meaningful psychological evaluation that families can use in the home, school and community settings. Lastly, trainees will be able to experience team coordination of services as they will be a part of a multidisciplinary team that may include psychiatry, speech therapy, schools and other agency services.
Limited exposure is available in the following areas:
Geriatric Neuropsychological Assessment: Involves once a month training on the neuropsychological assessment of older adults with a wide variety of neurological and psychological disorders. Interns will be introduced to a range of neuropsychological assessment measures, including measures of memory, language, and executive functioning, and will hone interview skills that are key to understanding age-related cognitive changes. Interns will be involved in integrating assessment data into useful reports that assist patients, their loved ones, and medical providers in distinguishing between normal age-related changes, changes related to psychological issues, and true neurodegenerative decline. Diagnostic conditions evaluated include depression, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), other dementias (i.e., vascular, Lewy Body, frontal lobe), and head injury.
Pain: Involves at least 1-2 times per month exposure in the Broadlawns Pain Management Center. Interns will have the opportunity to work with a multidisciplinary medical team, conduct new patient exams with direct clinical interviews and treatment planning, brief individual therapy, group therapy, psychological assessment for spinal cord stimulator procedures and consultation with Pain Center providers.
Our Supervisors
While we won’t know your exact supervisor assignments until the internship starts, these are examples of some of the individuals you may work with over the course of your year at the site.
Site Training Director
Kindra Perry, Psy.D.
Supervisors
Lora Keipper, Psy.D.
Dr. Lora Keipper chose to work in the Pain Management Center at Broadlawns Medical Center to help create and implement a biopsychosocial approach to the treatment of chronic pain. As a Pain Psychologist, her practice focuses on identifying and treating the social and psychological factors that are affecting an individual patient’s pain, distress, and disability. In addition to her work as a Psychologist, she is the Program Manager of the Pain Management Center. She is proud to work in this capacity with an amazing team of healthcare professionals. Our multidisciplinary team utilizes evidence based treatments to provide quality healthcare to our community.
Kirk Mueller, Ph.D.
Dr. Kirk Mueller is a board certified clinical psychologist at Broadlawns Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa. Dr. Mueller completes psychological testing and psychotherapy with adults ages 18 and older, and also provides psychotherapy supervision in the Psychiatry Residency Program at Broadlawns.
Eddie Scott, Ph.D.
Dr. Scott obtained his PhD in School Psychology from the University of Iowa in 2020 and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Kennedy Krieger Institute Neurobehavioral unit in Baltimore, Maryland in 2021. He is a pediatric licensed psychologist with board certification in the field of Applied Behavioral Analysis. His background includes conducting intellectual and autism evaluations in outpatient clinics and working in schools and hospitals conducting behavioral assessment and intervention. Dr. Scott has also conducted research and presented his research in conferences across the country. His area of research includes parenting practices, autism, ADHD, functional communication and behavioral interventions.
Annual Pay, Benefits, and Support
Annual Pay for the 2025-2026 Training Year: $40,000
Benefits provided at this site:
- Paid Time Off
- Iowa Public Employees Retirement System with employer match
- Employee Assistance Program
- Health Insurance
- Dental Insurance
- Personal Liability Insurance
- Medical/Dependent Care Reimbursement
- Life Insurance
- Long-Term Disability
- Short Term Disability
- 403(b) and 457 Retirement Plans
- 529 Iowa College Savings Plan
- AVESIS (supplemental vision)
- AFLAC Accident, Cancer and Critical Illness insurance
- Travel/CME reimbursement
Holidays Observed:
- New Years Day
- Memorial Day
- Independence Day
- Labor Day
- Thanksgiving
- Friday after Thanksgiving
- Christmas Day
Please note that available benefits and observed holidays are subject to change. Matched interns will receive full benefit orientations at their site which will go over all benefit information for the training year. More information about the Support and Benefits offered in each of our regions can be found here.
Employment Requirements
- Required vaccinations include MMR, COVID, FLU
- Drug testing requirements: pre-employment drug testing required. Must present medical marijuana card to staff administering the UDS. Also must disclose medications. All positives will go to MRO and determine if meets exemption status.
- TB test
- Pre-employment physical
- Background checks: All candidates’ names will be compared to the Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) List of Excluded Individuals/Entities, which determines exclusion from participation in Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal healthcare programs. Healthcare providers, including allied health professionals, will be checked by the Medical Staff Services department. Any applicant on the excluded list will not be eligible for employment based on the exclusion. A criminal/abuse record check will be conducted on final candidates. If there is a criminal or abuse record confirmed, the applicant will be asked to complete additional documentation, and the decision to consider hiring an applicant with a confirmed criminal and/or abuse background will be based on the applicant being approved as outlined in the Iowa Code Section 135B.33. If the applicant is considered prohibited from employment by the external review agencies, then the applicant will be informed and may be directed to the external review agency.
- Applicants must submit additional paperwork to the Department of Health and Human Services in order to be approved to work within a healthcare facility.
Intern Selection Process
At Broadlawns Medical Center, the Training Director and site supervisors participate in the interview process. They look for interns that have a good fit to their program, a desire to work with the underserved population, and who are genuine and personable. A good fit for Broadlawns would include applicants who have a strong desire to learn, have professional curiosity, are able to accept feedback, perform ethically, who are flexible and adaptable, who are willing to see a wide range of acuity, and who are able to work as a member of a multidisciplinary team. Candidates who are closed to feedback, rigid in their thought process, have no desire to learn, or who are unethical, lazy, or do just the bare minimum expectations would not be a good fit for the program. Ideally, applicants would be eligible for provisional licensure in Iowa prior to the start of internship, however this does not require the applicant to have received a master’s degree in order to qualify.
COVID-19 Response
Services are largely in-person, though telehealth is an option for therapy.