Optometrist - Defense Health Agency Civilian Corps, Falls Church, VA

PENSACOLA, FL

About the Job

Overview:

Optometrist Pensacola Naval Hospital

On the shores of the Pensacola Bay lies the “Cradle of Naval Aviation.” Naval Air Station Pensacola is the starting point for most—if not all—Naval Aviators, Flight Officers, and Aircrewmen. The major tenant commands Naval Aviation Schools Command, Naval Air Technical Training Center, Marine Aviation Training Support Groups 21 and 23, and the headquarters for Naval Education and Training Command. Likely the most notable residents of NAS Pensacola are The Blue Angels Naval Flight Demonstration Squadron.

Located on Florida’s Emerald Coast, Pensacola boasts some of the world’s whitest sand beaches. This Panhandle city sits on the border with Alabama and is known as the “Western Gate to the Sunshine State.” Pensacola even has a little elevation, compared to other Gulf Coast areas, at 55-feet above sea level. This provides panoramic views of the stunning waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

This small metro offers just about everything you’d expect to find in a city of its size. Pensacola has a more urban vibe than beachy but still embraces its coastal personality with seaside restaurants, weekly open-air markets, and balmy weather. History takes center stage as Pensacola prides itself on being America’s first European settlement, dating back to 1559 (48 years before Jamestown, Virginia and 61 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock). The “City of Five Flags,” an annual ten-day festival, celebrates all five governments that have ruled the area: Spain, France, Britain, the Confederacy, and the United States.

Shopping is robust with national brands and locally owned retailers. Restaurants range from fine dining to chains and beachfront dives offering some of the freshest seafood you can imagine. There is plenty to do to kill time in Pensacola, even if you don’t like beaches. Catch a Blue Wahoos game (Minor League Baseball), visit the Seville Quarter (downtown) for a fun night out, or check out the National Naval Aviation Museum—Pensacola’s top tourist attraction. You’ll see the Blue Angels rehearse so often that you’ll feel like you could choreograph the whole sequence. It never gets old, though—trust us!

Responsibilities:

POSITION DUTIES:

INTRODUCTION

This is a professional clinical optometrist position located at the U.S. Navy Medical Center. The incumbent of this position can be assigned to any Facilities, including Warfighter Refractive Surgery Centers, vision centers, or eye clinics. The primary focus and goal of this position is support of Department of Defense (DoD) workforce readiness and the provision of diagnostic and preventive care services provided in a highly specialized area of optometry, specifically that of military clinical management and the delivery of expert military vision care.

MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Functions as a primary care provider for patients seeking ocular/vision care, and is an essential member of the interdisciplinary military medical team to promote, protect, improve, and restore the mental and physical well-being of active duty and retired service members, and other eligible beneficiaries in support of DoN contingency operations across the full range of military activities and operations.

The primary duty is to provide comprehensive professional optometric services to active duty military personnel, military families, and other eligible beneficiaries. That is, to "examine, diagnose, treat, and manage diseases, injuries, and disorders of the visual system, the eye, and associated structures, as well as identify related systemic conditions affecting the eye"

Responsibilities include detecting, diagnosing, and treating injuries, deficiencies, diseases, and disorders of the visual system (the eye and its associated structures) and related systemic providing combat eye protection (e.g., ballistic and laser eye protection); and determining eligibility for eye surgery and its subsequent pre- and post-operative care. As such, duties may include, but are not limited to:

A. Military-Centric Optometry Services

1. Primary Eye Care
Conducts comprehensive examinations and visual analyses to service members and eligible personnel, corrects visual anomalies, and improves functional inefficiencies by the use of lenses, prisms, or other ophthalmic devices.

Performs military vision screening and determines fitness for military duties, including accession for military services, qualification for special military duties (aviation, submarine, diving, Special Warfare or Special Operations), and fitness for military duty after eye injury or surgery.

Focuses on occupational vision care in such military-specific tasks as combat/deployment eye protection, workspace lighting standardization, and visual fatigue countermeasures due to, but not limited by, extensive reading, driving, or computer use.

Determines the accommodative, refractive and binocular status of the eyes, and scope of visual function in general to determine the proper applications of lenses to accommodate

Utilizes specific examinations and instruments to determine an individual's functional vision and specific visual abilities relating to acuity, depth perception, visual fields, contrast sensitivity, and color perception.

Diagnoses and manages vision clarity problems such as myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, or complications due to the aging process (e.g., presbyopia), disease (e,g., cataract), trauma (e.g., corneal scar), or malfunction of the visual system (e.g., amblyopia) using spectacles and specialized contact lenses, when medically indicated, which may include, but is not limited to, keratoconus and/or scleral lenses.

Provides preventative measures for active duty military members and their families in
development, evaluating job/school/hobby related tasks, and promoting nutrition and hygiene education.

Diagnoses, treats, and manages ocular diseases and disorders such as corneal abrasions, foreign bodies, ulcers, infections, dry eye syndrome, iritis, uveitis, glaucoma, and other eye diseases that require treatment with pharmaceutical agents and minor procedures (e.g., punctal plug insertion, corneal foreign body removal, etc.). Provide proper referral and management for patients who need additional specialty medical care.

Diagnoses, manages, and co-manages eye-related systemic diseases (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, headache, etc.) that are often first detected in the eye.

Independently apply advanced technology, neuro-visual testing and traditional evaluation methods; utilize advanced, state-of-the-art diagnostic and evaluation techniques.

Perform duties in the area of behavioral and developmental optometry with responsibility to assess the performance of vision and how vision integrates with all of the other senses.

2. Refractive and Ocular Surgery
Determines eligibility for eye surgery and provides pre-surgical and post-surgical care of cataracts, refractive laser treatment, keratoconus/corneal ectasia, retinal diseases, and other conditions that require pre- and post-surgical care.

Develops standards of care, policies, procedures, guidelines, methods, and techniques to manage a wide array of surgery cases and pre- and post-operative conditions.

When permitted by state optometry licensing and under local medical treatment facility credentialing coverage, performs minor surgical procedures that include, but are not limited to, chalazian removal, skin lesion removal, Yttrium Aluminum Garnet Laser (YAG laser) posterior capsulotomy, laser peripheral iridotomy, and laser trabeculoplasty.

3. Brain Injury Rehabilitation
Apply individualized patient-centered treatment to complex patients with co-morbidities, such as, but not limited to, unprecedented traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder, and pain. Diagnosis and treatment of TBI visual consequences. This includes, but is not limited to, oculomotor and visual symptoms such as inability to properly process and interpret information requiring perception, visualization and retention, oculomotor-based reading difficulties, eye-tracking problems, eye-focusing problems, vision-derived nausea, increased sensitivity to light, increased sensitivity to visual motion, etc.

Diagnoses TBI and other neurologic conditions using electrodiagnostic equipment, video eye-tracking, and computer-based assessment tools. Provides therapeutic interventions through vision training, vision therapy, orthoptics, lenses, prisms, and filters.

Diagnoses and manages symptoms such as poor vision body coordination when one interacts with the environment, as in sports, occupations, and other everyday activities requiring spatial judgments.

4. Specialty Contact Lens Services and Low Vision Rehabilitation & Vision Therapy Provides specialty contact lens services for patients with medical conditions (e.g., corneal ectasia, keratoconus, corneal scarring, or high astigmatism, etc.). Provides low vision evaluation, consultation, and therapy for poor vision due to trauma or ocular disease (e.g., blast-induced visual loss, age-related macular degeneration, etc.).

B. Administrative and Supervisory Duties:

Independently resolve technical problems, provide expert consultation, research, leadership and advice to an inter-disciplinary team of professionals and administrators. Provide comprehensive analysis and reports based on test results, interdisciplinary consultation and conference with providers to review the diagnostic findings, prognoses, therapeutic recommendations and respond to inquiries or concerns regarding the full evaluation.

Review, advise, and provide guidance on the full range of matters related to patient care. Acts as a subject matter expert in military vision standard and policy. Provides mentorship

and guidance to junior staff and student interns. Provides training and supervision to optometric technicians for proper and accurate utilization of the Department of Defense s (DoD) Spectacle Request Transmission System (SRTSweb).

Maintains accurate documentation of patient records in the DoD Military Health System Electronic Health Record (EHR). Maintains records of clinical workload and participates in clinical staff quality assurance functions. Ensures proper maintenance and/or calibration is conducted as required thereby contributing to a safe work environment.

Performs other assigned administrative duties, such as, but not limited to, attending meetings, commanders call, or training, participating in Joint Commission, or writing clinical Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

Performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

1. Must have received a passing score on the National Board of Examiners in Optometry (NBSO) examinations and possess a current, full and unrestricted license to practice optometry in a State, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or a territory of the United States.

2. Licensure or Registration. Unrestricted license to practice therapeutic optometry in one of the fifty states, U.S. Territories or the District of Columbia is required. Applicant must be credentialed and maintain these credentials in accordance with local MTF regulations and applicable DoD instructions.

3. In accordance with BUMEDINS 6230.15, susceptible or occupationally exposed health care employees who have direct contact with patients will receive appropriate immunization against communicable diseases unless a current immunization, a protective titer, or a medical exemption is documented. This policy applies to all health care settings, regardless of age or sex of the health care employee. Employees who have contact with or potential exposure to human blood or blood products (whether from patient care, laboratory, or other health care settings) are provided hepatitis B virus vaccine in accordance with the local blood borne
pathogen exposure-control plan.

4. In accordance with BUMEDINST 1500.15F employees assigned to or subject to being assigned to duties providing direct patient care, either diagnostic or therapeutic must possess and maintain Basic Life Support (BLS) certification.

5. This position is a Testing Designated Position (TDP) subject to applicant testing and random drug testing.

6. The incumbent may be required to work on any day or shift, including night, weekends, mission requirements.

Source : Defense Health Agency Civilian Corps, Falls Church, VA