Welcome to the Hospice and Palliative Care Fellowship Program
Welcome to the University of Utah HealthCare Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program! Thank you for your interest in our acclaimed fellowship. We offer a diverse practice setting enviornment. This fellowship is hosted in the Department of Internal Medicine; and the fellow will have opportunities to work in a wide variety of hospitals and disciplines in our large catchment area.
The University of Utah Medical Center, George E. Wahlen VA Medical Center, Intermountain Medical Center, and Primary Children's Hospital provide comprehensive health care services over a seven state area, including portions of Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, and rural Utah, or approximately 15 percent of the US land mass. A substantial portion of Utah’s population resides outside of the Wasatch front, where the majority of tertiary care services are available. Approximately one-quarter of the population lives in rural or frontier areas.
At the University Hospital, the fellow will work on an inpatient consultation service with an interdisciplinary team including physicians, advanced practice clinicians, social workers and chaplains. The University Hospital is a tertiary care multispecialty trauma hospital and transplant center. On this rotation, the fellow will be exposed to the full spectrum of serious illness with varying trajectories, including cardiac, neurologic, geriatric, organ transplant, gastrointestinal, cancer, and pulmonary patients.
Both the University Hospital and Huntsman Cancer Hospital have active General Inpatient Hospice services where the fellow will be actively engaged in managing complex patients at end of life. Fellows have the opportunity to participate in Huntsman at Home, a hospital at home care model, including acute symptom management, palliative care and hospice care in the home.
The Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (HCI) is a NCI designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, with exposure to a variety of cancers, end of life care, and treatment related conditions. The Palliative Care team, known as Supportive Oncology & Survivorship (SOS) sees patients from diagnosis through survivorship, disease recurrence, or end of life. The SOS team also includes pain management and psychiatric physicians, as well as a team of board certified Advanced Practice Clinicians.
The HPM fellow will have a continuity clinic at either HCI or in a chronic serious illness clinic at University Hospital, where s/he will be supervised by attending physicians who are board certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, with expertise in oncology, psychiatry, and pain management.
In addition, the fellow will participate in a pain clinic at the University Pain Management Center, a one month rotation. During this rotation, the fellow will participate in the work up and management of a variety of chronic pain patients who are followed with a multidisciplinary team, including psychologists and physical therapists.
Primary Children’s Hospital (PCH) is a tertiary referral hospital, with approximately 150 new palliative care referrals per year. Because PCH is the only tertiary care hospital for children in a five-state area, the full spectrum of pediatric complex chronic conditions are well represented. PCH also has a well-established palliative care program, Rainbow Kids, caring for over 1,500 children since its inception in 2007. Nearly 50 percent are still alive and being followed within the program to date.
The fellow will spend at least one month on service at PCH, participating in daily bedside rounds, performing new consultations, conducting family meetings, attending care conferences, and running weekly IDT meetings. There will be daily contact with all members of the IDT. Fellow’s duties will include participating in consultations, arranging/coordinating team meetings, IDT discussions, and transitions of care. S/he is expected to function as a medical provider within the interdisciplinary team.
Our fellowship has a one day per week, yearlong, longitudinal hospice rotation. We believe the uniqueness and strengths of our hospice-teaching program are centered on the commitment to longitudinal exposure, our experienced faculty with 1:1 teaching, and the balance between for-profit, not-for-profit, urban, and rural hospice experiences. Pediatric patients are included in the hospice experience. Fellows will receive training and preparation to take the Hospice Medical Director Certification exam.
Finally, the fellow will have a three to four week elective with options of furthering interests in research, publication, integrative medicine, radiation oncology, etc.