Alie Collins was working as a server at Bill Bateman’s Bistro and taking some general education courses at a community college with the thought of perhaps applying to nursing school someday, when she heard about a job opening for an assistant ophthalmic technician at Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine. Collins saw the job as an opportunity to expand her horizons.

And so, in 2014, with no background in ophthalmology — or medicine for that matter — Collins was hired as an ophthalmic technician assistant at Wilmer Eye Institute. Among other duties, ophthalmic technicians assist clinicians by performing visual acuity and eye pressure checks on patients, operating ophthalmic equipment in the clinics and performing other testing and tasks as needed. At Wilmer, some ophthalmic technicians work as members of the float pool, traveling between Wilmer’s nine satellite locations, where they fill in as needed.

Wilmer requires that all ophthalmic technician assistants become certified ophthalmic technicians between their 12th and 18th month of employment. This necessitates passing a rigorous, three-hour-long certification test that they must study for while fulfilling their duties as ophthalmic technician assistants. But pass it they do. More than 100 technicians have become certified through this approach at Wilmer. Some go on to nursing school or other allied health professions, but their Wilmer experience can provide a nice segue, boosting their skills and adding to their resumes. It also allows for many learning opportunities, not all of them obvious.

Today, more than six years later, Collins is lead ophthalmic technician of the Wilmer float pool, a position that entails maintaining the float tech schedule, monitoring time and attendance, overseeing the training of new techs, ordering supplies and submitting documentation for travel expenses for techs who float between clinics. With ophthalmic clinic supervisor Mike Hartnett, Collins also helps coordinate continuing education conferences and annual skills evaluations of techs.

As lead tech, she is also the regulatory compliance coordinator at Wilmer. In this role, she meets regularly with colleagues and administrators to review protocols, policies and standards of practice to ensure the clinics are in compliance. The position also entails helping prepare Wilmer for accreditation by The Joint Commission, which requires regular walk-throughs in each of Wilmer’s clinics to ensure that all protocols, particularly around patient and staff safety, are being rigorously adhered to.

Taking Advantage of All Wilmer Has to Offer

Since coming to Wilmer, Collins has taken advantage of numerous opportunities for learning, including serving for two years as an instructor in the Ophthalmic Technician Assistant Training Program at Howard County Community College. Collins helped build the curriculum from scratch — a reminder, she says, of just how much students are required to take on and absorb in their training. “It was such a great experience, and the opportunity gave me the ability to speak with confidence at work,” says Collins.

In 2019, Jefferson Doyle, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at Wilmer who specializes in genetic eye diseases, noticed Collins’ strong work ethic and recruited her as an assistant for a research study he was undertaking. When the pandemic hit, the study had to be put on hold, but Collins subsequently completed the Johns Hopkins McKusick-Nathans Department of Genetic Medicine Genetic Assistant Training Program.

Now, in addition to her duties as lead tech of the float pool and regulatory compliance coordinator, Collins is the scheduling coordinator at Wilmer’s Genetic Eye Disease Institute (GEDi). In that role, she works with patients, physicians and the institute’s genetic counselors to arrange for the appropriate testing and coordination of what are often multiple appointments for patients in various departments at Johns Hopkins. “Doors just keep opening,” says Collins. “Once a doctor sees what you can do, they ask you if you’re interested in their next project, and it just keeps happening. It’s such a good feeling.” Two additional Wilmer techs have since undertaken the Genetic Assistant Training Program, with the goal of assisting at GEDi.

While Collins admits that balancing everything has been challenging, she says the sense of accomplishment and the knowledge and confidence she’s gained have been well worth it. “I think it helps in the clinic setting, knowing what you’re talking about,” Collins says. “You can do an eye exam on someone, you can check their vision and their pressure, but it doesn’t necessarily give you an understanding of the big picture. When someone says they have a family history of retinitis pigmentosa, they might not know that’s something that’s passed down. They might not know what autosomal recessive means, or dominant, so they might not know the significance of that for the exam,” she says, adding, “I feel very comfortable going up to a doctor and saying this is what they should see the genetic counselor for.”

Hartnett says that Collins is an example of a tech who has taken full advantage of all that Wilmer has to offer, but Collins says she’s just appreciative of all she has gained as a tech at Wilmer. “Wilmer has given me some great opportunities, and I am really lucky to have had them. I know going forward in whatever path I choose, these experiences will make me a better, more confident employee.”