Graduate Medical Education Officers

Our program is exciting, innovative and progressive

Ensuring the Navy has the most talented medical professionals providing the best care available to our nation’s heroes and their families now and in the future is something Naval Hospital (NH) Jacksonville takes very seriously.

While our doctors and nurses care for service members and their families in much the same way as their civilian counterparts, military medical professionals must gain a broader spectrum of experience to ensure care is provided not just at shore-based hospitals, but also on forward-deployed aircraft carriers, at shock trauma units on battlefields and in response to global disasters. Our training does not stop with the fundamental medical and nursing degrees and credentials. We offer advanced training programs to make certain our military medical professionals can provide the most sophisticated care available in any environment.

A key way NH Jacksonville achieves this is through its award-winning Family Medicine Residency Program, which was named clinical site of the year by the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) in 2011. Not only is the hospital’s program the Navy’s largest accredited family medicine residency, it’s also one of the nation’s oldest (accredited in 1971). Each year, approximately 35 Navy physicians are exposed to cutting edge techniques and hands-on learning in a wide variety of sub-specialties (including prenatal care, geriatrics, primary care, preventive health and sports medicine) and active mentoring to cultivate clinicians capable of providing the full spectrum of care needed by military families.

“Our program is exciting, innovative and progressive, and it addresses the changing medical needs of the military family,” said Cmdr. James Keck, who heads up NH Jacksonville’s residency program. “Family medicine physicians treat and manage a broad range of health concerns, so it is critical we ensure we train our primary-care doctors to provide high-quality care for our military service members and their families— from birth through retirement.”

Upon graduation, these skilled family medicine doctors support the medical needs of service members all over the world–at hospitals, on ships, on sub-marines and on battlefields. To enhance the educational experience, they also rotate at Shands at the University of Florida and Wolfson Children’s Hospital, gaining experience in areas including trauma, emergency medicine, critical care and pediatrics. On top of that, the residency program supports over 40 additional medical students who rotate through the hospital’s Family Medicine Clinic each year.

We encourage medical students who are considering our program for residency training to join us for a fourth year rotation.  We offer Sub-Internships, outpatient clerkships or a combination of inpatient and outpatient.  A fourth year rotation gives you the opportunity to experience the culture of the program and get to know the people you may be working with in the future.  As in the 3rd year clerkship, you will be assigned a resident and faculty preceptor who will be your primary mentors.  

Uniformed Services University Health Sciences (USUHS) and Naval Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP) medical students are invited to apply for residency training at Jax Family Medicine.

The application for Navy Graduate Medical Education (GME), including our residency program, is facilitated through Navy Medicine Manpower, Personnel, Training & Education Command (NAVMED MPT&E).

Their webpage for general GME information is
http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/navmedmpte/gme/Pages/default.aspx.

The application for a PGY1 position for Navy GME is on the Web at the NAVMED MPT&E GME 1 web application page:
https://nmmpte.med.navy.mil/gme1/default.asp

If you are not currently a USUHS or HPSP student, we invite you to explore a career in Navy Medicine at http://www.navy.com/careers/healthcare/ and http://www.navy.mil/swf/index.asp

Nurses

Naval Hospital (NH) Jacksonville offers two nurse-training programs: Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist Program and Perioperative Nurse Course. About 40 Navy nurses participate in the hospital's three-month perioperative course which is designed to provide Navy nurses with the specialized knowledge and skills needed to provide the comprehensive care needed for patients before, during and immediately after surgery. The Graduate School of Nursing at USU offers a 30-month master's-level Nurse Anesthesia Program which begins with a year of classroom training at USU followed by 18 months of clinical, didactic, and research training at a clinical site. Three to four nurse anesthesia students are assigned each year to NH Jacksonville's site.

Along with the instruction at NH Jacksonville, students get real-life experience with high-acuity patients at facilities including Shands, Flagler Hospital, and Kosair Children's Hospital (ranked among the top children's hospitals nationwide).

"Our goal is to prepare nurse anesthetists to function in more medically complex and acute settings around the world. This is especially important, as most of our certified registered nurses deploy to support the fleet after their first year, which can mean being the sole anesthesia provider for an aircraft carrier that may have 5,000 personnel onboard," says Cmdr. Brent Bushey, NH Jacksonville site director for the anesthetist program.

Another way NH Jacksonville prepares Navy nurses is through high-fidelity simulation and skills labs. Using mannequins to simulate patient problems such as complications during surgery and the birth of a child, the hospital staff is able to better educate nurses in acute care situations through realistic role-playing, simulations and thorough de-briefs. Skills labs include training using mock scenarios to help nurses use problem-solving abilities to treat patients. Collaborating with Shands (since 1998) and Orange Park Medical Center (since 2011), 12 to 18 nurses participate in two-week rotations to gain hands-on experience with emergency, trauma and critical care patients. For these nurses, it means being part of that hospital's staff for the two-week period, working with the most acute patients in areas such as neonatal intensive care, trauma and cardiovascular units, and labor and delivery.

Along with the two-week clinical rotations NH Jacksonville nurses are able to participate in, the hospital collaborates with the local medical reserve unit (Operational Health Support Unit Jacksonville), Orange Park Medical Center, Shands and Baptist Health on a two-day Trauma Nursing Core Course (TNCC). By pooling resources, the course is offered to nurses from the Navy and community hospitals four times a year - allowing 24 nurses from each facility to participate each year. The TNCC is aimed at nurses with limited access to trauma patients to better prepare them to be essential members of the trauma team.

Corpsmen

“A convenient place shall be set apart for sick or hurt men, to be removed with their hammocks and bedding when the surgeon shall advise the same to be necessary: and some of the crew shall be appointed to attend to and serve them and to keep the place clean. The cooper shall make buckets with covers and cradles if necessary for their use,” reads Article 16 in the Rules for the Regulation of the Navy of the United Colonies of North America of 1775 which provided the first direction to the organization of Navy Medicine.

So began the legacy of valor, sacrifice and courageous care provided by the Navy Hospital Corpsman. Whether taking the name of cooper, loblolly boy, surgeon’s steward, apothecaries or hospital corpsmen, enlisted members of the Navy Hospital Corps have served alongside Marines and sailors providing medical care to those in need since the revolutionary war – often as the only medical provider. Today, approximately 26,000 corpsmen serve around the world – on ships, at clinics and hospitals, on subs and on battlefields from Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, to the Philippines and South America.

Clinical Training

In addition to growing future doctors, NH Jacksonville also offers two nurse-training programs: Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist Program and Perioperative Nurse Course. About 40 Navy nurses participate in the hospital’s three-month perioperative course which is designed to provide Navy nurses with the specialized knowledge and skills needed to provide the comprehensive care needed for patients before, during and immediately after surgery. The Graduate School of Nursing at USUHS offers a 30-month master’s-level Nurse Anesthesia Program which begins with a year of classroom training at USUHS followed by 18 months of clinical, didactic, and research training at a clinical site. Three to four nurse anesthesia students are assigned each year to NH Jacksonville’s site.

Cmdr. Brent Bushey, who is the NH Jacksonville site director for the anesthetist program which will become a doctorate-level program in 2013, explained that along with the instruction at NH Jacksonville, students get real-life experience with high-acuity patients at facilities including Shands, Flagler Hospital, and Kosair Children’s Hospital (ranked among the top children’s hospitals nationwide).

“Our goal is to prepare nurse anesthetists to function in more medically complex and acute settings around the world. This is especially important, as most of our certified registered nurses deploy to support the fleet after their first year, which can mean being the sole anesthesia provider for an aircraft carrier that may have 5,000 personnel onboard,” says Bushey.

Another way NH Jacksonville prepares Navy nurses is through highfidelity simulation and skills labs. Using mannequins to simulate patient problems such as complications during surgery and the birth of a child, the hospital staff is able to better educate nurses in acute care situations through realistic role-playing, simulations and thorough de-briefs. Skills labs include training using mock scenarios to help nurses use problem-solving abilities to treat patients.

Collaborating with Shands (since 1998) and Orange Park Medical Center (since 2011)—12 to 18 nurses participate in two-week rotations to gain hands-on experience with emergency, trauma and critical care patients. For these nurses, it means being part of that hospital’s staff for the two-week period, working with the most acute patients in areas such as neonatal intensive care, trauma and cardiovascular units, and labor and delivery.

Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Beltejar, a nurse who heads up NH Jacksonville’s Maternal Infant Unit, participated in two rotations at Shands in 2010. One month after completing her second two-week trauma rotation, she deployed to a trauma unit at Forward Operating Base Lagman in Afghanistan in January 2011. Since NH Jacksonville is not a level-one trauma hospital, the training experiences available at Shands and other facilities better prepare her and other staff to deliver front-line medical care. “We received approximately 500 trauma-level patients alone during my deployment there—80 in just one month,” Beltejar said. “While the cases presented at U.S. based hospitals are different than those resulting from war, the treatment of trauma patients is the same. And the trauma experience I gained at Shands was invaluable and better prepared me to care for some of the most critically wounded casualties of war of all ages while I was deployed to Afghanistan.”

Along with the two-week clinical rotations Beltejar and other staff are fortunate to participate in, NH Jacksonville collaborates with the local medical reserve unit (Operational Health Support Unit Jacksonville), Orange Park Medical Center, Shands and Baptist Health on a two-day Trauma Nursing Core Course (TNCC). By pooling resources, the course is offered to nurses from the Navy and community hospitals four times a year – allowing 24 nurses from each facility to participate each year. The TNCC is aimed at nurses with limited access to trauma patients to better prepare them to be essential members of the trauma team.

All-in-all, almost 150 military and civilian students receive training throughout NH Jacksonville every year. More than 100 training agreements with local and national universities, colleges and medical organizations make these learning opportunities possible—from physical therapy students from the University of North Florida to family medicine residents from the Mayo Clinic.

And NH Jacksonville’s role in growing our nation’s healers doesn’t stop with graduate-level education. A handful of students from Darnell Cookman Middle/High School participate in the hospital’s intensive five-day Science, Service, Medicine & Mentoring (S2M2) Program each year. These students get real-world experience in patient care areas including the emergency and operating rooms, pharmacy, and physical and occupation therapy.

Conferences