Photo By Julius Evans | From left to right: HM2 Marshall ‘Broc’ Phillips, NOSTRA Stock Leading Petty...... read more read more
Curriculum management Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) at Navy Medicine Education, Training and Logistics Command (NMETLC) in San Antonio, Texas, are now working to finalize a project that ensures the Navy’s optician course continues to meet the needs of the Navy and Navy opticians in the fleet.
The effort began with an optician school curriculum review during a November visit to the Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity (NOSTRA), home to the Tri-Service Optician School, or “TOPS.”
NOSTRA is nestled in the east corner of the Virginia Peninsula on Naval Weapons Station Yorktown. A subordinate activity of Naval Medical Logistics Command (NMLC), NOSTRA also fabricates military eyewear, prescription gas mask inserts and combat protective eyewear inserts.
NOSTRA’s TOPS is the Department of Defense’s only training program for Navy opticians and Army optical laboratory specialists. A Navy optician is a Hospital Corpsman with the Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) Code 8463. NMETLC is the Navy surgeon general’s principal adviser for education, training and logistics, and is responsible for training and equipping Navy Medicine.
The NMETLC SMEs collaborated with a myriad of TOPS staff, and optician SMEs and stakeholders from across Navy Medicine and the fleet. The team conducted a Navy Optician Course Training Requirements Review (TRR). A Navy TRR is a comprehensive course curriculum review and revalidation that follows Navy-wide education and training policies governed by Navy Education and Training Command (NETC).
TRRs are scheduled about every 60 months and performed on all “A” and “C” schools, and Navy-approved courses of instruction. The TRR process is outlined in the NETC Training Requirements Review Management Manual, NAVEDTRA 133A. The last Navy Optician Course TRR was completed in July 2013.
“The team of opticians, SMEs and stakeholders reviewed existing training requirements to identify redundant or unnecessary training and gaps in training, and to ensure proper alignment of training based on existing, new or revised requirements,” said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Marshall ‘Broc’ Phillips, a TRR participant and NOSTRA’s stock leading petty officer.
The key to an accurate, successful review is input from TRR team members, opticians, SMEs and stakeholders across Navy Medicine and the fleet, said Curtis ‘Chili’ Davis, NMETLC optician training requirements review coordinator. The input process begins with a Navy message announcing the upcoming TRR and soliciting SMEs to participate. Davis said those unable to attend are encouraged to provide input via a standard “TRR Input Form,” the same form used by TRR team members.
“Experienced Hospital Corpsmen conducting day-to-day operations have a unique ability to pinpoint activities, processes and procedures at treatment facilities and clinics,” Davis described. “Their input can help identify training requirements, processes and procedures that may be obsolete, redundant or unnecessary.”
Davis said another source of equally valuable input comes from surveys of recent TOPS graduates and their supervisors.
The TRR team took note of similar issues from multiple sources listed on some of the TRR Input Forms, said Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Osmond, O.D., Optometry department head at Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Illinois.
“We received multiple inputs from the field that repeated similar themes and highlighted redundancies as well as deficiencies,” Osmond said. “These were the issues people performing the job felt would help them better serve their patients.”
The team reviewed and discussed the TRR input forms to validate whether or not it was an issue. When the validation process was completed, the next step was generating a “TRR Action Chit” for each validated issue submitted on the TRR Input Forms, Phillips said.
“The action chits are generated by the work group during the TRR and then are further reviewed and edited by the NMETLC representative afterwards,” Phillips described.
Information listed on action chits includes the issue, the priority level (1, 2, or 3), the actions required to address the issue, and the working group’s recommendation to solve the issue.
In the end, Davis said only six TRR Action Chits were generated, though he has seen other courses generate as many as 50 to 60 during a review.
Davis returned to San Antonio where he and NMETLC education and training SMEs are doing a final review of TRR Action Chits. The next step is to forward the action chits to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) in Falls Church, Virginia, where the final decision will be made about which chits will be tasked for action. That determination is based on factors that include available funding.
After BUMED’s final decision, NMETLC will send out an after-action Navy message that lists the outcome of the TRR and describes the six action chits, including the priority of each. The six individual action chits will be posted on My Navy Portal.
In the end, the team’s work using the Navy’s comprehensive course curriculum review and revalidation process will help ensure TOPS students receive current, non-redundant information and training, making the fleet the primary beneficiary of the processes, said Chief Hospital Corpsman Christopher V. Caro, NOSTRA TOPS director of training and a member of the team.
“This allows TOPS to produce well-trained, fleet-ready opticians prepared to tackle anything thrown at them,” Caro said, adding that their work directly supports Navy Medicine’s goal of keeping the Navy and Marine Corps ready, healthy and on the job.
| Date Taken: | 12.22.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 12.25.2017 20:51 |
| Story ID: | 260165 |
| Location: | YORKTOWN, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 1,571 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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