Palliative Medicine Fellowship

Welcome to the Saint Joseph Hospital/Kaiser Permanente Palliative Medicine Fellowship program. Our program provides fellows with an opportunity to learn palliative care skills in an integrated healthcare system with robust interdisciplinary team support across multiple care settings. Our experienced faculty are all board certified in hospice and palliative medicine and have played key roles in building and expanding palliative care programs.

Our Palliative Medicine Fellowship program features:

  • Clinical experience at a large community teaching hospital and tertiary referral center with four residency programs: Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, General Surgery and Obstetrics and GynecologyOutpatient palliative medicine training in an integrated delivery model that emphasizes early palliative care support for patients with advanced illness
  • Emphasis on teaching communication skills with opportunities for targeted feedback and skill building
  • Hospice training at a community hospice that has a 22-bed inpatient care center, an average daily census of 150 home hospice patients and employs advanced symptom management techniques
  • Robust interdisciplinary team support across all settings and rotations

One month pediatric palliative medicine rotation with a board-certified hospice and palliative medicine pediatrician

  • Fully-integrated electronic medical record (EPIC) in both inpatient, outpatient and hospice settings
  • Dedicated palliative care pharmacy support 

Curriculum

Our fellows’ rotational experiences occur across the health delivery spectrum and meet the ACGME requirements for a palliative medicine fellowship. The core educational experience occurs in the inpatient setting with increasing responsibility and autonomy occurring throughout the yearlong experience.

Below is the curriculum for the year:

Note: Each "block" is 4 weeks in length.

  • Inpatient rotation - 6 blocks
  • Inpatient hospice rotation - 1 block
  • Home hospice rotation - 1.5 block
  • Home-based palliative care rotation - 0.5 blocks
  • Pediatrics rotation - 1 block
  • Long-term care rotation - 1 block
  • Elective rotation (elective opportunities include radiation oncology, interventional pain, psychiatry, oncology and cardiology) - 1 block
  • Vacation/CME - 3 weeks vacation/1 week CME

Rotation Sites

Inpatient

The inpatient rotation occurs at Saint Joseph Hospital which is a community teaching hospital and tertiary referral center that includes residents training in family medicine, internal medicine, surgery and OB/GYN. The hospital serves patients from Kaiser Permanente, National Jewish Health, and a large underserved population. The inpatient palliative care team has the support of chaplains, nurses, social workers and a pharmacist.

Hospice

The Lutheran Hospice is where the fellow receives their hospice training. Lutheran Hospice has a busy free-standing inpatient care center with 22 beds where general inpatient level hospice is provided. At this care center, advanced symptom control strategies are provided. Lutheran home hospice provides hospice services to patients in their home and other care facilities.

Home-based palliative care

The fellow will spend two weeks on the Kaiser Permanente home-based palliative care program. This unique service provides an interdisciplinary team approach to patients who are home bound and are not yet aligned with hospice care. Fellows have the opportunity to visit patients in their home and provide expert symptom management in the home environment.

Pediatrics

Fellows will spend one month with a board-certified hospice and palliative medicine pediatrician. The rotation consists of caring for patients at The Children's Hospital in Denver, as well as providing ambulatory for pediatric patients facing advanced illness.

Long-term care

During this rotation, fellows will see Kaiser Permanente patients who are in a subacute nursing facility. The fellow will work with a board certified hospice and palliative medicine physician and social worker and will learn how to provide symptom management and conduct goals of care discussions in a nursing facility.