Three Year Curriculum Overview
Year 1
The first year of the fellowship focuses on providing participants with a solid foundation of clinical knowledge and experience through high-impact educational conferences and longitudinal, outpatient-focused clinical training. Fellows will be paired with disease experts for more focused learning opportunities.
Year 1 of the fellowship includes:
- Disease-focused half-day clinics in medical oncology, malignant hematology and classical hematology (7 half-day sessions per week, year-long)
- Fellows are assigned longitudinally to work with a disease-specific faculty mentor in each of their disease-focused clinics on a given half-day each week over the course of the year.
- Fellows assume primary responsibility of the patients for whom they care, in conjunction with their faculty mentor and supporting interdisciplinary team members.
- Provision of care across the spectrum of cancer and survivorship, including active participation in our clinical trials program.
- Inpatient hematology/oncology consult service (4-5 weeks)
- Fellows commence intermittent inpatient responsibilities during the second half of the academic year.
- Inpatient hematologic/oncologic consultation is provided for a vast array of medical services in a tertiary care setting on BIDMC’s East and West campuses.
- Fellows get rich exposure to hematologic/oncologic emergencies and consultative issues.
- Educational conferences (daily, year-long)
- Participation in the longitudinal career development process (year-long)
- Professional development series: weekly conferences on topics relevant to career development (including finding a mentor, careers in hematology/oncology, scholarship pathways, independent funding, finding a job, etc.)
- Team-based, longitudinal career advising
- Biannual mentorship conferences with fellowship program leadership, including scholarship advisors
- Annual Career Development and Scholarship Advisory Council meetings
- Vacation (3 weeks per academic year)
Year 2
Following the comprehensive clinical experiences in clinical hematology/oncology in the first year of fellowship, trainees will focus on a combination of inpatient and outpatient clinical and didactic training in hospice and palliative medicine in their second year. Additionally, they will maintain a longitudinal clinic in hematology/oncology.
Years 2 of the fellowship includes:
- Inpatient hematologic malignancies (8-9 weeks)
- Intensive exposure to diagnosis, evaluation and management of patients with hematologic malignancies and related complications including: autologous and allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation and adoptive cellular therapies.
- Fellows are supervised by expert faculty mentors.
- Longitudinal clinic in hematology/oncology (1 half-day per week, year-long)
- Each fellow will define their patient panel and clinical focus, in accordance with their individual goals and supported by the fellowship program’s career development infrastructure.
- Inpatient palliative care (4 months)
- Fellows will work with a unified interdisciplinary team (comprised of physicians, advanced practitioners, social work, spiritual care and pharmacists) to manage consult requests addressing symptom management, advance care planning and end-of-life care across general medical and subspecialty services.
- This includes working with the innovative palliative oncology service at BIDMC, which sees hospitalized patients with cancer on a criteria-based referral model.
- Inpatient hospice (8 weeks)
- Fellows will work closely with a robust interdisciplinary team at Care Dimensions, a leading nonprofit organization in the Greater Boston area. This includes experience in compassionate end-of-life care, advanced symptom management, and support for patients and families at the general inpatient (GIP) level of hospice care.
- Home hospice (4 weeks)
- This includes home visits in conjunction with hospice nurses, the hospice medical director and other interdisciplinary team members.
- Fellows will be involved in presenting patients at weekly interdisciplinary team meetings.
- The didactic curriculum includes lectures on care for the dying patient, non-oral routes of medication administration and other hospice care topics.
- Pediatric palliative care (2 weeks)
- o Rotation at Boston Children’s Hospital to work with their advanced care team to provide advanced symptom management, complex medical decision-making, and comprehensive interdisciplinary support to children and families facing serious illness.
- Palliative care consultation in long-term care/rehab (3 weeks)
- Fellows will participate in consultations for patients in the long-term care setting as well as the short-term rehab unit.
- Specific experience includes assessing rehab patients who are referred following frequent hospital readmissions or a recent decline in function or medical status.
- Fellows will work with the multidisciplinary team at Hebrew SeniorLife.
- Palliative care clinic (1 half-day per week, 6 months)
- Longitudinal, ambulatory palliative care clinics at BIDMC or the Boston VA.
- Ambulatory referrals commonly include pain, non-pain symptom management, advanced care planning and psychosocial support.
- Fellows see assigned patients during each clinic session under the mentorship of hospice and palliative medicine faculty.
- Participation in the longitudinal career development process (year-long)
- Professional development series: weekly conferences on topics relevant to career development (i.e., finding a mentor, careers in hematology/oncology, scholarship pathways, independent funding, finding a job, etc.).
- Team-based, longitudinal career advising.
- Biannual mentorship conferences with fellowship program leadership, including scholarship advisors.
- Annual Career Development and Scholarship Advisory Council meetings.
- 2 months allocated to independent scholarship and professional development (learn more below)
- Vacation (3 weeks per academic year)
Year 3
The final year of training will be largely reserved for pursuit of individual scholarship and professional development needs based on each fellows’ chosen career path. Trainees can pursue additional clinical experience in the form of electives based on interest and career goals.
Year 3 of the fellowship includes:
- Longitudinal clinic in hematology/oncology (1 half-day per week, year-long)
- Each fellow will define their patient panel and clinical focus, in accordance with their individual goals and supported by the fellowship program’s career development infrastructure.
- Clinical electives (1-4 week blocks)
- Radiation oncology
- Laboratory medicine
- Hematopathology
- Pathology
- Cytogenetics
- Coagulation
- Transfusion medicine
- Community-based hematology/oncology, BID Needham
- Hospice and Palliative Medicine electives, including:
- Spiritual care and social work immersions
- Addiction medicine
- Chronic/Interventional pain management
- Geriatrics
- 11 months allocated for independent scholarship and professional development (learn more below)
- Vacation (3 weeks)
Independent Scholarship and Professional Development
Time for initiation and pursuit of independent scholarly project(s) of each fellow’s choosing; this work will be continued longitudinally and with mentored oversight. This includes time for writing IRB proposals, research protocols, manuscripts and grants, as well as time for pursuing coursework or meetings/collaborations relevant to the individual’s professional development needs.
For more information about the clinical training experiences and didactics included in Year 2, please visit the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship website.
About Fellowship
