Hospice and Palliative Fellowship
The Division offers a rigorous and interdisciplinary fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. The fellowship trains leaders in palliative care which aims to reduce the burdens of life-limiting conditions by supporting the best quality of life.
The program is designed to further training in the management of factors that contribute to the suffering of the patient and the patient’s family through the course of the illness. The fellowship experience includes acquiring the central skills of providing assistance with medical decision making, prevention (when possible), assessment and management of physical, psychosocial, and spiritual distress faced by individuals and their families.
Notable Hospice and Palliative Medicine program features, per ACGME requirements, encompass the following:
a) High levels of expertise in addressing the multidimensional needs of people with life-threatening illnesses, including a practical skill set in symptom control interventions
b) High levels of expertise in both clinical and non-clinical issues related to advanced illness, the dying process and bereavement
c) Commitment to an interdisciplinary team approach
d) Strong focus on the individual and family as the unit of care
Educational Goals
The core of the fellowship curriculum is based on longitudinal HPM experiences that last the year. Each fellow will provide palliative and hospice care for adults and children. In addition, fellows have subspecialty clinics focused on palliative care and chronic disease such as COPD, CHF, Dementia, AIDs. Fellows follow a panel of patients at the VA Community Living Center where the focus is on interdisciplinary team care planning of complex chronic disease patients that includes long-term care, palliative, and hospice appropriate admissions. The fellow also participates in administrative meetings. Dr. Neila Shumaker, the Fellowship Director, supervises this experience along with other clinical faculty. There are consultation services at Renown Medical Center and the VA year long. Dr. Eric Peters is the supervising Pediatrician at Renown Medical Center within the Pediatric Care Unit.
There are 12-months of the VA CLC rotations for fellows. This includes administrative, clinical care, quality improvement, team care planning, and house staff teaching duties. Fellows work with Nurse Practitioners, Pharmacist, Psychologist, Social Workers, Rehab staff, Chaplains, Nutritionist, Nurses on care planning and case management as part of an interdisciplinary team.
Fellows do not take calls after hours or weekends.
Didactic sessions are also provided by and for fellows through the following: Live presentations, video teleconferencing (VTel), audio teleconferencing, webcasts, DVD. To enrich and enhance collegiality among small fellowship programs, we offer the fellows increased exposure to other geriatric medicine fellows through a shared weekly core lecture and journal club with Stanford University’s GRECC and their fellows. Some lectures occur in Reno and some occur in Palo Alto but broadcast live through VTel. The VA is a rich source of nationally acclaimed speakers that offer monthly research conferences through our live audio teleconferencing systems. Fellows work to build their presentation skills with Patti Swager (the NGEC’s Director) and Dr. Diane Chau by teaching chronic disease management topics to an audience of other physicians and healthcare providers. Didactics are designed to meet different learning styles from those who are self directed to those needing more scheduled lectures.
The fellowship program offers frequent close mentoring and collaborative opportunities for academic growth with HPM faculty.
Application Form
