NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine’s Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship is a one-year program dedicated to training the next generation of palliative care physicians through a variety of clinical experience and interdisciplinary learning.

Our graduates emerge as highly skilled palliative medicine physicians and healthcare leaders, prepared to navigate complex clinical, ethical, and leadership challenges in a rapidly evolving field. We understand complex moral and ethical challenges are common in palliative care and that the ability to manage these issues is essential to providing high quality patient care. Our carefully crafted curriculum emphasizes critical thinking, active learning methods, and interdisciplinary skill building. 
Our program offers:

• patient populations, across multiple settings, that represent a wide range of clinical diagnoses and socioeconomic groups
• strong academic and clinical bioethics integration
• interdisciplinary training across settings 
• strong outpatient training, and an available ambulatory path, recognizing a growing trend in ambulatory palliative medicine
• dedicated research and quality improvement opportunities with national presentation potential

Our Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship program aims include the following:

• educate fellows in symptom control, prognostication, and the management of medically complex diseases
• develop fellows’ skills in managing complex moral and ethical challenges in palliative medicine, to support the provision of high-quality medical care
• train fellows in interdisciplinary team-based care, the hallmark of expert palliative care 
• produce independent palliative medicine physicians who excel at managing the great range of complexities of clinical palliative care 

Program Details

The one-year Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship accepts two fellows per year. The program provides physicians with a rich understanding of palliative care, the expertise to manage palliative inpatients and outpatients, skills to effectively participate in interdisciplinary teams, and skills to capably manage ethically complex clinical cases. The program is overseen by Jeffrey T. Berger, MD, fellowship director and chief of the Division of Palliative Medicine and Bioethics.

Fellows receive expert-led intensive training in the medical, ethical, and technical aspects of palliative care. In addition, through interdisciplinary mentoring fellows are taught engagement and communication skills, analytic thinking, and managing dynamics within families and across teams of clinicians. The program faculty have a wealth of expertise in clinical and academic bioethics. Ethics content is deeply interwoven into the pedagogy and clinical training. Our fellows learn to apply bioethical frameworks and knowledge to their everyday clinical practice. The bioethics curriculum extends across the didactic curriculum and is applied during work rounds and through bedside teaching.

Fellows train with highly expert faculty made up of physicians, nurse practitioners, and social workers each of whom are specialty trained or certified in their respective palliative discipline. You can watch past lectures from our renowned faculty. which give an overview of our fellowship program as well as opinions on a variety of other hospice and palliative medicine topics. 

Clinical Curriculum

Hospice and palliative medicine fellows rotate through a wide range of clinical settings, including inpatient, consultative, and ambulatory palliative care services, home hospice, extended care, and pediatric settings. Fellows gain expert-level pain and symptom management including training with faculty who are experienced in the use of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), ketamine, and methadone.
 
Throughout the program, fellows participate in the following clinical rotations:

Adult Palliative Care Inpatient Consultation Service Rotation

Fellows obtain valuable clinical experience at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island. The consult service is quite active in MICU, CCU, SICU, neuro intensive care unit, the oncology unit, and general medical units. Fellows complete seven months of rotation on the adult palliative care inpatient consultation service, where they interface regularly with spiritual care services, pharmacy, and nursing as well as a range of medical and surgical specialists with supervision from Dr. Berger, the site director. Fellows work and train closely with house staff in internal, family, and emergency medicine and with other fellows in oncology, nephrology, geriatrics, and other specialties.

Ambulatory Palliative Care Rotation

Our training environment at NYU Langone Palliative Medicine Associates—Mineola. includes a busy outpatient practice where fellows gain experience in supportive oncology, preoperative evaluations for left ventricular assist devices (LVADs), and the care of patients with a variety of serious medical conditions.

Fellows spend one half day per week throughout the training year rotating on the ambulatory palliative care service at the NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island Palliative and Supportive Care Clinic, where they develop skills to care for patients who have a wide range of prognoses and a variety of diseases with supervision from Dr. Berger, the site director. Patients are referred to the program from pulmonology, cardiology, neurology, pediatrics, oncology, and gynecologic oncology.

Ambulatory Palliative Care Path

We offer an optional ambulatory path within the fellowship, recognizing that the field of palliative care is moving upstream and increasingly into outpatient settings.

This enriched ambulatory experience is focused on providing direct patient care as part of NYU Langone’s palliative care and supportive care outpatient services. and includes collaboration with the NYU Langone Health Home Care. team and dedicated time in the Perlmutter Cancer Center Infusion Center. These clinical experiences prepare fellows to become adept outpatient palliative care physicians, who are prepared to care for patients with a variety of health conditions across a wide spectrum of diseases and to be clinical leaders in ambulatory palliative care, an area of medicine where we anticipate great growth.

During this six-week optional intensive, fellows gain preparation in outpatient palliative and supportive care and work closely with the outpatient interdisciplinary team evaluating and managing highly complex patients whose palliative diagnoses include neurologic disorders, cardiac and pulmonary disease, severe renal and hepatic dysfunction, and malignancy. Fellows broaden their understanding of the spectrum of conditions, symptoms, and psychosocial concerns that exist within the scope of outpatient palliative care and become familiar with relevant organizational and system issues. Fellows become further skilled in telemedicine, working across the home care continuum and other ambulatory services. 

Home Hospice Rotation

Fellows provide home hospice care to adult and pediatric patients in Queens and Nassau County in affiliation with Metropolitan Jewish Health Services (MJHS). Fellows rotate on the MJHS home hospice for two months, where they work with an interdisciplinary team to provide end-of-life care to adult and pediatric patients receiving home hospice services. Under the supervision of site director Michael Mencias, MD, fellows learn about administrative aspects of hospice care and become familiar with the process, requirements, and criteria for certification and recertification of terminal illness, inpatient hospice admissions, and admissions for respite care.

Long-Term Care Rotation

Fellows spend one month rotating on the long-term care at Calvary Hospital. Under the supervision of site director Robert Brescia, MD, fellows learn to manage patients alongside their palliative care team, provide support, and develop a plan of care that provides optimum comfort and addresses individual care goals. 

Inpatient Palliative Care Unit Rotation

Fellows spend one month rotating on an inpatient palliative care unit at Catholic Health Good Shepard Hospice. Under supervision from site director Jeffrey Bergman, MD, fellows work as a member of the interdisciplinary consult team, improving their knowledge and skills in providing palliative and end-of-life care to patients and families with a high-symptom burden in acute care.

Elective Rotations:

Fellows have 4 weeks of elective time. Electives include but are not limited to:

• medical oncology outpatient practice
• gynecologic oncology outpatient practice
• radiation oncology
• pulmonary hypertension outpatient practice
• interstitial lung disease outpatient practice
• congestive heart failure outpatient practice
• wound care

Research Experience

Fellows also have protected research time to develop a scholarly project that relates to their career goals. With mentoring from faculty, fellows prepare and complete a quality improvement or research project, develop abstracts, and submit work for publication and for presentation at local, regional, and national scientific meetings, including the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

Didactic Learning

In addition to clinical training, fellows take part in formal didactic activities using adult learning methodologies throughout the year, including:

• core lecture series 
• journal clubs, including the interdisciplinary Palliative Medicine Journal Club where they collaborate with other house staff from Pulmonary–Critical Care and Oncology Journal Clubs
• case discussions
• Palliative Care Grand Rounds  
• interdisciplinary team meetings
• quality improvement and research 
• medical ethics didactics/consults/workgroup meetings and ICU ethics rounds
• board review
• wellness activities

NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine is home to a state-of-the-art Simulation Center for building clinical skills and communication skills. Hospice and palliative medicine fellows participate in five simulation sessions throughout the year.

How to Apply

To be eligible for the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship, you must complete at least three years of Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education–accredited residency training.

We participate in the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), also known as The Match. We only accept fellowship applications through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS), run by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

We begin accepting Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship applications in August for positions that begin the following summer. Applicants must submit the following materials:

• fellow application form
• medical school transcript
• three letters of recommendations
• a personal statement that describes research interests and career goals
• CV
• scores for the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) Step 1, Step 2, and Step 3 or Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination (COMLEX) scores
• Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) certificate (if applicable)

We encourage all applicants to apply before The Match deadline, which is typically in early November.

Contact Us

If you have questions about the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship, please contact Melissa Mooney, program coordinator, at Melissa.Mooney@NYULangone.org or at 516-663-4680. Our office is located at 222 Plaza Station North, Suite 400, in Mineola, New York.

Learn more about graduate medical education programs at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, and access information for residents and fellows, including house staff benefits, policies, and services.