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Hospice and Palliative Medicine Curriculum

Your Year as a Fellow

During your year as a Creighton Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellow, we will ensure that you have access to the tools and resources necessary to allow you to grow into the Academic Hospice and Palliative Medicine Physician that you aspire to be. You will care for a diverse patient population with a wide range of diseases spanning multiple stages of their journey, providing them with up to date evidence-based medicine. You will train with physicians from multiple specialties and participate in high quality multidisciplinary care. You will train with faculty from the largest hospice in Arizona with over 40 years of experience providing hospice care to our community through home hospice and inpatient hospice at one of their 9 inpatient units. In addition, you will participate in didactic sessions with all of the Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellows in Phoenix through our Fellowship Consortium. We will ensure that you have a supportive environment that prioritizes physician well-being and teaches the skills needed for a healthy, happy and prosperous career.

Curriculum (see rotation descriptions below)

Bootcamp4 weeks
Inpatient Palliative Consults20 weeks
Hospice12 weeks
Interventional Pain2 weeks
Pediatrics4 weeks
Research/QI4 weeks
Long Term Care4 weeks
Elective4 weeks

Rotation Descriptions

Bootcamp is an introduction to the symptom management, communication and prognostication skills that you will build upon throughout your fellowship. Bootcamp will give you the strong foundation you need to be able to progress through your rotations and graduate ready to succeed as a Hospice and Palliative Medicine Attending.

The Inpatient Palliative Consultative Service provides Palliative Medicine to the inpatients at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center. Founded in 1895, St. Joseph’s Hospital is the oldest hospital in the Phoenix area and the medical center houses the internationally-renowned Barrow Neurological Institute. St. Joe’s (as it is affectionately called) has ~600 inpatient beds and serves the local Phoenix community and beyond. The consultative service provides assistance to the many primary teams in the medical center, including but not limited to oncology, critical care, hospital medicine, neurology, surgery, cardiology and emergency medicine. Consults cover the full breadth of Palliative Medicine including complex symptom management and complex medical decision making. The Inpatient Consultative team currently consists of physicians, nurse coordinator and social work. An interdisciplinary team approach is taken when providing care to each of our patients.

Fellows will train alongside Hospice of the Valley faculty and staff through a multidisciplinary approach to care at their inpatient units and during home hospice visits.

Fellows will work with a community pain specialist learning about the role procedural pain management has in the care of Palliative patients.

Fellows will train alongside the faculty and staff at Phoenix Children’s Hospital providing symptom management and shared medical decision making with children. The fellows will be exposed to the field of Pediatric Palliative Care and recognize the similarities and differences between Pediatric and Adult Palliative Care.

Fellows will start working on their scholarly project during Bootcamp. They will also start the QI curriculum at that time. Fellows will be given 4 additional weeks (split into 2 week blocks) to work alongside their co-fellow on their scholarly project. Fellows will learn the tools necessary to continue to engage in quality improvement throughout their careers.

Fellows will work with the Palliative Medicine Faculty to provide Palliative Medicine consultations in our long term care facility.

  • Neurology
  • Cardiology
  • Hepatology
  • Neuro-oncology
  • Oncology
  • Psychiatry
  • Critical Care
  • Hospice and Palliative Medicine in Omaha

*If there is an elective that you are interested in and it is not listed, the Program Director and Program Coordinator will do their best to get you the experiences you are hoping for.

Additional Curriculum

You will participate in the following longitudinal learning experiences to supplement your educational experience.

  • Physician Wellness
  • Coding and Billing
  • Communication
  • Ethics
  • Chemical Dependency
  • Clinician Educator

Contact Information

Jay Patel, MD, MPH, FAAHPM
Fellowship Program Director
JayPatel@creighton.edu
Phone: 602.406.5556
Fax: 602.798.9532

Dolores Castro
Fellowship Coordinator
Dolorescastro@creighton.edu
Phone: 602.406.5556
Fax: 602.812.3150

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