The INM Residency Consortium
Our goal is high quality residency opportunities for all ND graduates. In order to achieve this goal, INM has developed the INM Residency Consortium (IRC) as a partnership between:
Top Naturopathic Medical Schools: Universities provide both educational and capital contributions. The university will provide oversight and guidance on best practices, and will offset the cost of the residencies by paying into the program.
Corporate and Business Partners: When the business community that benefits from the success of NDs contributes to clinical graduate training, we can increase our residents’ knowledge and education around current best practices and products, and at the same time lower the cost of residencies for partner clinics.
Partner Clinics: These clinics represent the best ND businesses in the area, and are prepared to serve the larger community by becoming mentors to these new graduates. They provide hundreds of hours of mentored oversight to new clinicians, and under this model, contribute about a third of the resident’s salary.
Like three legs of a stool, this partnership will allow us to build new opportunities for ND graduates, while at the same time sharing the cost burden between all interested parties in our industry.
Clinic Benefits and Expectations
Features of this model include a focus on gaining experience interfacing with patients in a primary care setting, robust performance benchmarks, a Semiannual Academic Seminar training series, a Site Directors training module and powerful Culture Index (TM) tools that creates a tightly connected clinic / consortium team that communicates and interacts effectively to bring out the best from every person involved in the residency program, and a shared funding model with contributions from host clinics, universities, and businesses.
Our goal is to create a system that is beneficial for everyone involved. For clinics, that means getting the benefit of a resident for a fraction of the full cost of their salary.
Right now, when clinics take on the responsibility of mentoring an ND resident, the clinic not only shoulders the time and staffing cost associated with that responsibility, but also assumes all the financial risk by paying 100% of the resident’s salary. Because the resident doesn’t generate revenue right away, this system results in a high cost burden for the clinic. With this new model, the financial risk is greatly lessened, and the professional development impact is augmented through additional programming that doesn’t rely on individual management by the partner clinic site director.
Within INM’s Residency Consortium, partner clinics and their leaders are expected to be open, transparent, and diligent as a part of delivering the best possible residency experience. At least one person from each partner clinic must attend quarterly site director meetings and serve on a committee planning the Quarterly Academic Seminars.
In return, clinics get a full time resident for a fraction of the cost of the resident’s salary. Because of INM’s unique funding partnership, clinics save $20,000 for the first year in staffing costs while still benefiting from the additional billable revenue generated by the resident.
Semiannual Academic Seminars (SAS)
These Seminars are an important part of this residency program. Partner clinics agree to attend these seminars, and also help INM to implement them and make them meaningful for our residents.
There are 2 seminars per year, each focused on a theme or topic within naturopathic medicine.
The idea is to create a true cohort model for this residency program, and to improve educational outcomes. We need a place where residents and mentors come together to discuss and learn about topics relevant to our professional work.
We believe that these seminars will be engaging, useful, and popular. We want them to be meaningful to residents and existing providers alike.
How to Apply
Clinics with the desire and ability to put forth the time and effort for this quality residency program are encouraged to apply.
Please review the clinic expectations here and email residency@naturemed.org with any questions.
To apply as a residency site, please follow the the following link, follow the instructions, and submit the form:
Applications are due by November 1 for residencies starting the following Fall. Approved clinics will be notified in January and submitted for visibility in the AANMC resident application portal for the upcoming residency year.