Residency Program: Albuquerque Indian Health Center

Residency Program in Primary Care/Ocular Disease
Albuquerque Indian Health Center (Albuquerque, NM)

Established: 2019

Positions: 1

Albuquerque Indian Health Center

Department of Optometry

801 Vassar Dr. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106

505-248-4003, christopher.cordes@ihs.gov

Program Faculty

Residency Coordinator: Christopher C. Cordes, O.D., F.A.A.O.

505-248-4036, christopher.cordes@ihs.gov

Attending

Dr. Vincent Goodman, OD

Mission Statement

The mission of the residency program is to provide a comprehensive primary care optometry experience in a multi-disciplinary health center setting for postdoctoral optometric practitioners to continue to cultivate their clinical and educational growth with strong emphasis on ocular disease management and advanced optometric competencies.  Residents in this program will provide high level primary and ocular disease eye care to Native Americans of all ages in an educational-clinical setting that utilizes a multidisciplinary team of professionals to direct and carry out patient care. The resident will be immersed in fostering an appreciation for the culture of the Native American people and ensuring the resident becomes a caring and compassionate provider for all patients with diverse cultures. This will produce advanced optometric skills and competencies during the yearlong training program due to the advanced systemic and ocular conditions of the residency's unique population base.

Program Description

The AIHC residency program is designed to educate and train the resident in advanced optometric competencies through an appropriate mix of clinical care, didactic instruction, and scholarly activities.  The curriculum's primary focus is clinical activity maintained through an adequate and diverse number of direct patient encounters, involving the resident in the full spectrum of primary eye/ocular disease in a multidisciplinary, health center-based environment. The curriculum's foundations are the guidelines prepared by Indian Health Service (IHS), AIHC, and SCCO at MBKU.

Program Goals

1.    Strengthen the resident's primary care skills.
2.    Provide the resident with a practical understanding of the patient care components of an Indian Health Service health care system which may be representative of other health care systems which the resident will encounter in their future.
3.    Expand and enhance the resident’s ocular disease, advanced optometric competencies and systemic health care knowledge base.  
4.    Provide a forum for the development of the resident’s interest in scholarly activity.

Objectives

1.1    Provide the resident with an extensive primary care patient base.
1.2    Provide the resident with a variety of diverse, challenging, and complex cases.
2.1 The resident will work within and develop an understanding of the interdisciplinary concept of health care.
2.2 The resident will develop an understanding of the support services that are available within a medical health care system.

3.1 The resident will participate in the quarterly resident journal club meetings.
3.2 The resident will develop an understanding of other health care disciplines.
3.3 The resident will participate in virtual case reports/presentations weekly with the other Indian Health Service Residents.

4.1 The resident will meet the SCCO at MBKU mandated deadlines for scholarly activity.
4.2 The proctor will instruct and advise the resident in the preparation of clinical presentations.
4.3 The resident will develop an understanding of and experience the responsibilities of an optometric
4.4 The resident will complete three case reports during their residency.  They will be due in an orderly manner 31-January, 30-April, and 31-July of each year appropriately.  The 31-July case report can be/qualify for the same case report/manuscript listed in objective 1.
 

Workload and Schedule

Resident will spend the majority of their schedule in clinical care.  Emphasis is placed on clinical care. 

Weekly Resident Schedule

Clinical experience includes diagnosis and treatment of a wide variety of conditions including the following:
•    Ammetropia including common moderate and severe astigmatism 
•    Strabismus and binocularity anomalies 
•    Glaucoma 
•    Iritis 
•    Trauma 
•    Retinal detachment 
•    Keratoconjunctivitis, infectious  and other keratoconjunctivitis 
•    Diabetic eye disease 
•    Cataract 
•    Age-Related Macular Degeneration 
•    Lid conditions, i.e., inflammations, ptosis, etc. 
•    Central nervous system anomalies 
Patient demographics: 45% Pueblo, 45% Navajo, 10% other, randomly including all ages, male and female
Rotation length: ~12 months (not to exceed 13 months), August 1 – July 31 (dependent on US Government Pay Periods)

Work Schedule:
•    The schedule is based on 2-week pay periods of 80 hours consisting two 40 hour works weeks.  Duty/Work Hours are Monday-Friday- 7:30am to 4:00pm with 30 minute lunch from 12:00-12:30pm
•    Residents also participate in after-hours activities (journal club, case discussions) as designated by the Residency Coordinator, if necessary.
•    Resident regular time each week is generally allotted as follows.
Administrative/Meetings/Didactic/Scholarly Activity------  6 hours    ---15%
Clinical Practice    34 hours    85%
 

Clinical Activities:
-Direct patient care in a health center based clinical setting is the primary clinical activity.
-Clinical interaction with various health center departments is required, such as face to face consultations in house, and also via electronic health record communication. 
-Sub-specialty ophthalmology rotations are required and may include: general, glaucoma, retina, oculoplastics, and cornea. If additional rotations are desired by the resident they can be arranged.
- Precepting the student interns at AIHC after obtaining clinical and didactic training/comfortability.  This will produce the advanced competency of staffing 4th year interns. 
-All clinical activities are recorded in the Meditrek Activity and Patient Encounter Logs.   

Didactic Activities
-Didactic activities are typically scheduled on Thursday mornings during facility administrative time. The activities can vary from discussions of care/cases with staff optometrist(s), technicians to medical staff members at AIHC.
-The resident may attend continuing education lectures presented at the Biennial Indian Health Service meeting(s), various IHS facilities, and local ophthalmic provider presentations in community, national meetings (AAO, AFOS, AOA, and State Optometric Associations) or via online resources, which may pertain to a broad range of health care topics.
-The resident will participate in regular clinical case discussions with program faculty, medical staff, and optometric interns.

Scholarly Activities
-The resident is provided time per week to engage in scholarly pursuits, didactic educational activities, and other residency activities. The resident is required to prepare a manuscript of publishable quality that may consist of original research, literature review, case report, or a combination of each.
-The resident will participate in the resident journal club which meets approximately four times during the program year. The resident must be prepared to discuss at length each of the articles to be presented and will present in detail one journal article his/herself at each meeting.
-Formal discussions of patient cases, recent articles, or assigned topics will be conducted on Thursday mornings with other Indian Health Service Optometry Residents, as the schedule allows. The resident will share in the responsibility of the discussions by presenting a topic and leading a discussion or lecturing on an assigned topic.
-Teaching responsibilities serve as a mechanism to reinforce problem-solving skills and to provide the resident with the opportunity to develop teaching skills for potential future use. The resident will share with the staff in the opportunity to precept fourth year optometry externs on a regular basis, but not at the exclusion of an independent patient schedule.
-The resident will prepare three (3) case reports during their residency as outlined.

Direct patient care is the focus of the AIHC residency program and throughout the year, the resident experiences a desired minimum of 1200 patient care encounters.  These encounters include scheduled patients, referrals from other providers/departments, and urgent care walk-in exams.  Exams range from full comprehensive exams to problem focused/disease based exams.  Continuity of care is emphasized and the resident is responsible for the management of his/her patients, both acute and chronic, which allows for ongoing feedback and learning opportunities.  The clinic sees a high incidence of ocular and systemic disease and the resident is encouraged to take on complex and challenging cases with the support of the residency faculty.  This is to ensure residents obtain advanced competencies in the management of systemic and ocular disease.  Case discussions and reviews take place on a daily basis with residency faculty regarding these complicated cases.
 

The resident diagnoses, manages, and co-manages a wide variety of ocular conditions including anterior and posterior segment disease, trauma, and glaucoma.  The resident routinely prescribes topical and oral therapeutic medications to treat ocular conditions and orders lab work and imaging studies to aid in the diagnosis and management of ocular conditions.  The resident also consults and co-manages with other medical providers in house and with outside facility providers, including ophthalmology, family medicine, pediatrics, neurology, etc. when necessary. This management at all levels allows for competent management of advanced stages of ocular diseases. 
 

Approximately 90-95% of the resident's non-administrative (clinical, which is 85% of the total time) time is spent in direct patient care while about 5-10% is spent observing patient care with ophthalmology subspecialists and other health care professionals.  Flexibility is allowed according to resident interest and availability of providers.  The remaining time is reserved for administrative, didactic, and academic tasks, which supplement the direct and observation patient care involvement. Thus, 85% of the resident's time is spent in direct patient care. See Program Curriculum sample two-week schedule for further clarification. 
 

The quantity and quality of direct patient care encounters, as well as observational encounters with other health care providers, fulfill the mission, goals, and objectives of the residency program.
 

Compensation and Benefits

Residents are compensated as Federal Civil Service employees at the GS11 Step 1 level (approximately $104,219 yearly) with the following benefits. They thus will be required to meet all conditions of Federal and IHS employment, including background check, licensure, etc. Residents are responsible for the costs of moving household goods and travel to and away from Albuquerque Indian Health Center.

Housing

It will be the responsibility of the resident.  Albuquerque has a sufficient supply of rental housing available.

Application Materials and Procedures: CV, 3 Letters of Recommendation, Interview (in-person strongly preferred), MUST BE A US CITIZEN

Application Process
Applications are processed through the Optometric Residency Matching Service (ORMS) http://orms.org. The following are required to be eligible for consideration. A completed application must be submitted to the National Matching Services, Inc. (ORMatch), with supporting documents provided to the Residency Coordinator, no later than February 1st of the year during which the residency program is being applied for.
•    Citizens of the United States of America are given preference. A non-citizen may be eligible if there are no qualified US citizen applicants and they present to the Coordinator the appropriate documents that will allow them to work continuously as a resident for the designated time period in the United States.
•    OD degree conferred by an accredited school or college of optometry, the school or college of optometry conferring the degree must be accredited by the Accreditation Council on Optometric Education. Applicants must furnish to the Coordinator a copy of diploma and official complete transcripts of all optometric education.
•    Documentation of successful completion of all NBEO sections must be submitted to the Coordinator, unless extenuating circumstances exist.
•    Letter of intent including statement explaining why the applicant is pursuing residency training and what goals they hope to achieve during the program, submitted the Coordinator.
•    Applicants must be eligible to obtain a currently active and unrestricted license to practice optometry in a state, territory, commonwealth or the District of Columbia of the United States, which includes the use of therapeutic drugs by the beginning of the residency cycle. Documentation of this must be provided to the Coordinator and a copy of the license when obtained. Residents must meet all requirements necessary for appointment to the Medical Staff and privileging.
•    Completion of an interview with the Coordinator is mandatory, preferably in person.
All applicants will be evaluated for selection without regard to sex, race, color, creed, age, national origin, or non-disqualifying physical disabilities, except for applicants who are members of a federally recognized Native American or Alaska Native group whom are given preference under the Indian Preference Act.

Selection Procedure
• The Residency Coordinator assembles all required documents and information; and with other appropriate Health center staff evaluates all completed applications prior to ORMS match day.
• Selection: All completed applications will be evaluated by the program coordinator and other on-site faculty prior to ORMatch match day.  Candidates are ranked according the following categories:

• Appearance, Attitude & General Demeanor
• Clinical Performance History
• Communication Skills
• GPA & Academic Performance (including NBEO Scores)
• Professional Memberships & Activities
• References (character, dependability, clinical performance & knowledge, etc.)
• Residency and Professional Goals
• IHS Career Potential

Using this, including personality, motivation, professionalism, communication skills, willingness to learn, attitude, ability to work as part of a team, etc. a consensus ranking order will be identified and provided to ORMatch. The name of the matching applicant will be provided to the SCCO at MBKU Assistant Dean of Residencies, who will then make a recommendation for appointment of the selectee to the Dean of Optometry. The matched applicant must then begin the application process for federal civil service employment with AIHC as an optometric resident. He/she must apply for and obtain an optometric license promptly.  Once the license is obtained, the human resources department can proceed with the selection and hiring process. Once hired the resident must obtain health center privileges and a NPI/DEA  number with the assistance and guidance of the Residency Coordinator.
 

Requirements for Residency Completion and Awarding of Certificate

•  Appointment to the Health center Medical Staff including possession of an unrestricted license in a state, territory, commonwealth or the District of Columbia of the United States and all other designate requirement of privileging and appointment.
•  Completion and submission as designated in the Marshall B. Ketchum/SCCO Administrative Guide for Residents of all specified logs, i.e., patient visit with diagnosis, etc. along with designated evaluations of program and faculty.
•  Deliver competent patient care services during a recommended minimum of 1,200 clinical visits in a professional manner observing those proprieties of conduct and courtesy that are consistent with the rules and regulations governing Marshall B. Ketchum/SCCO and the IHS as observed by patients and staff.
•  Participate in all IHS Resident Literature Review meetings.
•  Submit and present at a meeting of peers a paper based upon original research, literature review, and/or clinical case suitable for publication in a peer reviewed journal by deadline(s) designated in the Marshall B. Ketchum/SCCO Administrative Guide for Residents.
 

Program Accreditation

The Accreditation Council on Optometric Education (ACOE) has granted the Albuquerque Indian Health Center Residency in Primary Care Optometry and Ocular Disease Program the accreditation status of “Accredited.” The next scheduled site visit will take place in March 2029. In the interim, an annual program review will be submitted to the ACOE each September. Accredited is a classification granted to an educational program indicating that the program generally meets the Standards for accreditation. For more information, see the ACOE’s website at www.theACOE.org  or contact the ACOE at accredit@theacoe.org.

Health Center and Setting

The information available at https://www.ihs.gov/albuquerque/healthcarefacilities/albuquerque/

The Albuquerque Indian Health Center provides broad health care services to an active user population of some 21,000 patients living mostly within the Albuquerque Metro Area. Departments include:

• Audiology
• Urgent Care
• Environmental Health
• Community Health Nursing
• Medical Imaging (x-ray, ultrasound)
• Medical Laboratory
• Psychiatry, Psychology and Behavioral Health
• Outpatient General Medicine
• Podiatry
• Specialty Clinics (rheumatology, neurology, and nephrology)
• Women’s Health

Other residents and student intern programs are conducted at the health center with students and residents from the University of New Mexico.

The Albuquerque Indian Health Center is located next to the University of New Mexico Hospital Complex. 

Nearby world-class recreational venues include hiking/backpacking, camping, biking, climbing, skiing, snowboarding, spelunking, etc.

The climate is the high desert at an elevation of 5,000 feet. Summers are mild, with highs reaching the mid-90s, and winter temperatures range from below zero to ’50s with snow.

Nearby metropolitan areas include Gallup, Santa Fe, Flagstaff, and Phoenix

Commercial airports serving the area are Gallup, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, and Phoenix.

Ski resorts including Sandia, Santa Fe, Taos, Purgatory, Telluride, Wolf Creek, and the White Mountains.

National Park Service and other institutional venues nearby include

• Grand Canyon National Park
• Mesa Verde National Park
• El Morro National Monument
• El Malpais National Monument
• Petrified Forest National Park
• Canyon de Chelly National Monument
• Natural Bridges National Monument
• Hubble Trading Post National Monument
• Chaco Canyon National Monument
• Bandelier National Monument
• Carlsbad Caverns National Park
• Cibola National Forest
• Zuni Mountains
• Mount Taylor (popular annual quadrathlon event)
• Sandia Mountains (longest tower to tower tram in the world)
• Humphreys Peak
• Lake Powell
• Pecos Wilderness
• Gila Wilderness

Points of Contact / Faculty

Christopher C. Cordes, O.D., F.A.A.O.
Coordinator, Optometry Residency Program
Department of Optometry, Albuquerque Indian Health Center
801 Vassar Dr. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106
505-248-4036 • Fax: 505-248-7721 •  Email: Christopher.cordes@ihs.gov
Director of Residency Programs
Captain, United States Public Health Service
 

Judy W.H. Tong, OD, FAAO
Assistant Dean of Residencies
Southern California College of Optometry at
Marshall B. Ketchum University
2575 Yorba Linda Blvd.
Fullerton, CA 92831-1699
714.449.7429 • Fax: 714.992.7811• Email: jtong@ketchum.edu