Geriatric

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The Family Medicine Residency of Idaho – Boise Program through Full Circle Health has created a 12-month ACGME accredited geriatric fellowship for physicians who have completed their three years of family medicine or internal medicine residency training. Fellows will be selected through a competitive application and interview process and must be board certified or eligible for board certification in family medicine. Fellows will be offered the opportunity to work with geriatric experts for one year focusing on the clinical care of older adults.

As a community health center, Full Circle Health provides geriatric care to a broad spectrum of patients: from the fit to the frail, from the independent to the dependent, and to persons from varied social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. Training during the fellowship will emphasize comprehensive longitudinal care in patient center medical home model. Training settings include acute care and ambulatory sites, nursing homes and hospice settings. The geriatric fellow will work as part of an interdisciplinary team which includes physician assistants, nurse practitioners, social workers, clinical psychologist, psychiatric residents, and a dietician as well as other family medicine physicians and family medicine geriatricians.

Application

One fellow will be selected each year. Applicants must have completed or expected to complete a 3-year ACGME accredited Family Medicine or Internal Medicine Residency Program and be board certified in Family Medicine; and will be expected to obtain an unrestricted Idaho State Medical License and DEA by the beginning of fellowship.

Applications will only be accepted through the ERAS system. The deadline for receiving applications is September 1. Interviews will be scheduled during the fall/winter. After all applicants have been interviewed, the faculty rank applicants in order of preference and submit the list of names to the  National Resident Matching Program.

Please email Amy Atondo, Fellowship Program Coordinator, for questions related to the application process.

 

Salary / Benefits

  • Salary: $73,221.00
  • Sixteen (16) days paid vacation per year. (View ACGME Family Leave Policy)
  • Educational allowance not to exceed $5000 for related CME.
    • Required activities:
      • UCLA Board Review Class Idaho Perinatal Project in January
      • Annual American Geriatrics Society Meeting
      • AMDA Conference
  • Health, Dental, vision, Life Insurance options for fellow and immediate family.
  • Disability Insurance for fellow.
  • Malpractice Insurance and Workers' Compensation Insurance.
  • Licenses and dues: Idaho board of medicine, DEA, board of pharmacy, AAFP, AGS membership.

Curriculum

Longitudinal Experiences

  • Full scope family medicine continuity clinic (1 time/week).
  • Focused geriatric continuity clinic (1 time/week).
  • Geriatric assessment and memory cognition clinic (1 time/week occurring at Full Circle Health and the VA).
  • Nursing home rounds (1 time/week).
  • Inpatient Geriatric Consult Service (2-3 times/week).
  • Home visits (approximately 6 times/year).

Block Schedule

  • Rehab (one month).
  • Palliative Care ( 2 one month rotations).
  • Nursing Home Call (1 week per block)
  • Nephrology (2 weeks).
  • Podiatry ( 2 weeks).
  • Geropsychiatry (2 weeks).
  • Long Term Acute Care (2 weeks).
  • Neurology movement disorders clinic (2 weeks).
  • Wound care clinic (2 weeks).
  • Hospice and home care (2 weeks).
  • Geriatrics infectious disease (2 weeks).
  • Urology (2 weeks).
  • Acute Inpatient Care of the elderly (3 one week blocks/year).
  • VA geriatrics (one month).
  • Three - one month electives which may be done away from Full Circle Health.
  • One month for academic project.

Conferences

  • American Geriatrics Society Annual Meeting.
  • UCLA Comprehensive Board Review Class in Geriatrics.
  • National Medical Directors (Nursing Home) Association meeting.

Training Facility

Full Circle Health – Raymond Clinic

The Raymond clinic has been the home location of our residency since 1983. All interns spend their first year as Raymond providers, and 6 upper level residents in each class also stay there for their full 3 years of residency.  Raymond is divided into three clinical teams by hallway as part of our PCMH initiative and is our largest clinic.   Patient mix is broad and exciting.   Procedural support is strong at this clinic and it houses many specialty clinics including sports medicine, rheumatology, and dermatology.  All our colonoscopies and EGDs are done here. Although it is an older clinic, it underwent significant remodeling in the last few years. Attending support is a mix of core residency faculty and part-time community preceptors.  This clinic offers a vibrant mix of patients and learning options.

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Full Circle Health – Meridian Clinic

Our Meridian clinic is located approximately 8 miles west of Boise, near the St. Luke’s Meridian hospital. The patient population is varied and comes from both suburban (Meridian / Nampa area) and outlying rural towns.  Our Spanish speaking population is growing thanks to the work of our Promotora (community health worker) staff. We have a core Meridian OB patient panel that desires delivery at St. Luke’s Meridian giving residents an additional source of OB volume.  Our pediatric volume is high due to the demographics of the location in addition to the presence of a pediatrician on our staff.  Procedures are abundant and the clinic faculty embraces teaching. Two R2s and two R3s are empaneled at Meridian each year. The Meridian clinic offers residents the opportunity to practice on a single multidisciplinary team. In the Summer of 2020, our second pharmacy location opened next door to the Meridian clinic.

Boise VA Medical Center

Boise VAMC, with 87 active beds, provides general medical and surgical services to veterans. The hospital includes an inpatient medicine unit, a small psychiatric inpatient unit, and an outpatient health clinic. The VAMC also sponsors fellowships in geriatrics, pulmonary medicine, and infectious diseases. They also have an outstanding research program. First year residents from Full Circle Health rotate for 2 months on the inpatient internal medicine services, supervised by second year internal medicine residents from the University of Washington. Fellows from the Geriatric Fellowship Program will also rotate through this facility during their program year.

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Faculty

Todd Palmer, MD

Geriatrics Fellowship Director

Dr. Todd Palmer graduated from the University of California at Davis. After completing his residency at the Family Practice Residency of Idaho in 1989, he then completed a faculty development fellowship at the University of Washington and has achieved added qualifications in geriatric medicine through the American Board of Family Practice. His special interests are geriatrics, the use of computers and handhelds in clinical medicine and residency training, and substance abuse. Dr. Palmer joined Full Circle Health as family medicine faculty in 1998.

Adam Kipp, MD

Family Medicine & Geriatrics

Dr. Adam Kipp was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. After stints in New Hampshire, the Dominican Republic, and Georgia for work and school, he returned to Portland for medical school at Oregon Health and Science University. He chose to go into family medicine because of the holistic approach to care that it values. Dr. Kipp came to Full Circle Health to explore the possibility of a career in full spectrum family medicine. Recognizing that this path did not align with his interests and goals, he returned to Full Circle Health after two years at the VA and completed the fellowship in geriatrics in 2018.

Currently Dr. Kipp practices and teaches outpatient family medicine at Full Circle Health with an emphasis on geriatrics. His passions include his family (Kimi and Xavier), skiing, hiking and Buddhist meditation and mindfulness.

Daniel Mueller, MD (he/him)

Geriatric Fellowship Faculty

Dr. Dan Mueller grew up in Western NY state where he did his undergraduate degree at the University of Rochester in anthropology and history and medical school at SUNY Buffalo. He moved out to Idaho for residency training at Full Circle Health Boise where he also completed a geriatrics fellowship. He now works at Full Circle Health Raymond clinic as associate clinic director and is a faculty member of the Geriatrics Fellowship Program, as well as faculty member of the HIV & Viral Hepatitis Fellowship Program. Dr. Mueller enjoys providing patient care and education around outpatient primary care, geriatrics, evidenced-based medicine, liver disease and treatment of addiction. Outside of clinic he enjoys running, biking, backpacking, and camping with his partner Sadie in the Boise foothills and surrounding national forests in Idaho.

Current Fellows

Tracy Adams, DO

2023-2024

Dr. Tracy Adams was born in California and raised in Boston, MA, and after a few detours through other parts of the country, including Georgia and Pennsylvania for his undergraduate, grad school, and medical school, he ended up in Idaho. Over the course of his medical education and training, he grew to love full spectrum Family Medicine and rural health, and he completed his Family Medicine residency at Full Circle Health: Caldwell Rural Training Track in Caldwell, Idaho. Though he loves treating patients of all ages, he wanted to deepen his understanding and treatment of the rapidly aging population and decided to pursue a Geriatrics Fellowship to augment his skillset. He is excited for the year ahead and looking forward to continuing to learn new things as a physician every day.

In his spare time when he’s not busy with patients, Dr. Adams enjoys reading novels and comic books alike, catching up on his favorite anime, staying active in the gym or on his bike or in the yoga studio, attending comic conventions, listening to audiobooks and podcasts, and getting a good videogame session in. He has a long list of travel destinations in Idaho that he still would like to visit and plans to cross each place off the list over the next year.

Past Fellows

Caroline Schoo, MD

2021-2022

Daniel Mueller, MD

2020-2021

Zach Weiss, MD

2019-2020

Scott Christensen, MD

2018-2019

Adam Kipp, MD

2017-2018

Medical School: Oregon Health Sciences University
Current job: Practicing Geriatrics in Boise, Idaho

Jennifer Lewis, MD

2016-2017

Kara Kuntz, MD

2015-2016

Medical school: University of Washington School of Medicine – Montana WWAMI
Current job: Geriatrician in Boise, ID