Curriculum
The training for Mayo Clinic’s Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship consists of 12 months of clinical training, complemented by research experience. During your clinical training, you will:
- Learn prognostic criteria for patients with life-limiting illnesses.
- Perform functional assessments to assist in coordinating care.
- Learn how to discuss palliative treatment options with patients, families and professionals.
- Perform visitation and home care as an important component to end-of-life care.
- Work with the ethics committee and ethics consult service.
- Demonstrate excellence in communication between the patient, family and palliative care team.
- Perform pain assessment and incorporate the World Health Organization’s analgesia ladder.
- Learn to use opiates, narcotic equivalences and conversions as needed.
- Coordinate and lead family meetings.
- Research and publish articles on palliative medicine.
- Coordinate and perform bereavement evaluation and follow-up.
- Demonstrate cost-effective symptom evaluation and management.
- Lecture and teach medical students, nurses and other members of the health care team the special aspects of palliative medical care.
- Learn and apply Medicare and Medicaid rules and regulations as well as managed care and HMO mandates.
- Learn empathic interviewing techniques.
- Take a spiritual history and be sensitive to cultural variations.
- Incorporate patients’ cultural, spiritual and experiential perspectives to design an individualized care plan.
Rotations
The typical rotation schedule for the one-year program includes:
| Required Rotations |
Length |
| Inpatient consultation service | 4 months |
| Hospice of the Valley |
2 months |
| Inpatient hospice |
2 months |
| Continuity clinic |
12 months
(1 day a week, concurrent with other rotations) |
| Pediatric hospice |
2 weeks |
| Electives |
3.5 months |
Elective rotations include:
- Pain service
- Hematology/Oncology
- Neurology/ALS Clinic
- Research
- Cardiology
- Pulmonary clinic
- Pediatric palliative care
Didactic training
Clinical conferences, seminars, small discussion groups, journal clubs and one-on-one instruction are an integral part of Mayo Clinic's Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship. Behavioral medicine will be integrated throughout the year of your training.
Weekly conferences and monthly half-day seminars will cover primary care topics, including discussion of ethical dilemmas faced by physicians in training.
Case studies/Mortality and morbidity conference
You will prepare and present the pertinent information of an interesting case, conduct an in-depth discussion of that case, and supply a current bibliography.
Research training
Research opportunities at Mayo Clinic are outstanding. During the course of this fellowship, you will design and complete a research project under the close mentorship of one of our experienced clinician-researchers.
You will learn about research through observation and participation in the design and conduct of ongoing clinical trials.
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