Curriculum

Occurs in conjunction with fellowship orientation activities at the beginning of the year. Core lectures and activities are included with initial patient exposures during a 5-8 day block.

Occurs over a 10 day block during the winter/spring with additional core lectures, activities, field trips, and fellow presentations.

Fellows meet one day per month for core learning activities. Morning didactics are followed by 2 hours of journal club, clinical case conference, or grand rounds. Monthly meetings with the team psychologist and the fellowship director are also scheduled these days. Meetings with the team psychologist focus on reflections on and strategies for more challenging patient encounters and wellness and coping. Fellowship director meetings focus on academic progress, scholarly projects, wellness, and feedback.

Yale HPM fellows participate with Yale geriatrics fellows in a series of half day workshops, powered by Vitaltalk, during the year. These are sequential in focused skill development progressing from relationship building and delivering difficult news skills to discussing prognosis and goals of care to negotiation of code status. Role play, drilling, and simulated patient cases are used in longitudinal small groups with faculty facilitation. Yale HPM Fellows also participate with the group of New England HPM fellowships in an annual Advanced Communication Skills Course over 2 days in Burlington, Vermont.

Faculty will work with fellows to identify a focus and content specific mentor for their scholarly project early in the year to allow for longitudinal work. The focus may be on quality improvement, clinician-educator development, or clinical research. Fellows are encouraged to identify an area of genuine interest and passion in order to reap full rewards from the effort invested. Time will likely be split over two blocks to allow for intensive project work to be spread out over the year.

Fellows will also submit a clinical case report abstract in the fall for the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Annual Assembly the following spring.

Fellows participate with Yale faculty in palliative care and communication skills teaching opportunities for Yale medical students during the year. They also provide mentored teaching on opioid basics as part of monthly teaching sessions to the Yale-New Haven Hospital medical oncology ward team. Fellows gradually assume the lead teaching role for other trainees rotating on the Yale-New Haven Hospital inpatient palliative care consultation service. Lastly, fellows are encouraged to participate in educator training opportunities as part of the Yale Teaching and Learning Center and Yale’s Annual Medical Education Day.

• Palliative Medicine Grand Rounds presentation
• Midway and Final presentation on their scholarly project
  
• Two Palliative Care Journal Clubs
  
• Two Palliative Care Case Presentations
  

• Yale Palliative Care Conference – Journal Club, Case Conference, Grand Rounds
  
• Yale Palliative Care Clinic Interdisciplinary Team Meeting
  
• Smilow Cancer Hospital Schwartz Rounds
  
• Smilow Mortality Review Committee
  
• Yale Internal Medicine Grand Rounds
  
• Yale New Haven Hospital Bioethics Committee Meetings

• Yale Bioethics Seminars
  
• Yale Addiction Medicine Rounds
  
• Yale Medical Humanities Seminars
  
• Yale Program for Medicine, Spirituality, and Religion Seminars
  
• Yale Teaching and Learning Center Teaching Seminars and Journal Clubs
  
• Yale Geriatrics Grand Rounds, Research In Progress, Case Presentations