NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine’s Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship is a one-year program dedicated to training physicians to be exceptional palliative medicine clinicians.

Our graduates are positioned to become effective leaders in healthcare and palliative medicine physicians who excel at both medicine and doctoring. We understand complex moral and ethical challenges are common in palliative care and that the ability to manage these issues is essential to providing the highest level of care. Our carefully crafted curriculum emphasizes critical thinking, active learning methods, and interdisciplinary skill building.

Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship program aims include the following:

• develop fellows’ skill in managing complex moral and ethical challenges in palliative medicine, to provide the highest-quality medical care
• train fellows in interdisciplinary team-based care so they can become effective leaders in healthcare
• educate fellows in symptom control, prognostication, and the management of medically complex diseases
• produce independent palliative medicine physicians who excel at both medicine and doctoring

Program Details

The one-year Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship accepts two fellows per year and provides physicians with a rich understanding of palliative care and the expertise to manage palliative inpatients and outpatients, effectively participate in interdisciplinary teams, and 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 intense interdisciplinary mentoring in communication skills, analytic thinking, and managing dynamics within families and across teams of clinicians, as well as expert instruction on the medical and technical aspects of palliative care. The program has a wealth of bioethics expertise with core faculty and clinical team members who have formal training and expertise in bioethics. Our fellows learn to apply bioethical frameworks and knowledge to their everyday clinical practice.

Fellows obtain valuable clinical experience with diverse patient populations at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island and at NYU Langone Palliative Medicine Associates—Mineola. Fellows work and train closely with house staff in medicine and with other fellows in oncology, nephrology, geriatrics, and other specialties.

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

Fellows also provide home hospice care to adult and pediatric patients in Queens and Nassau County in affiliation with Metropolitan Jewish Health Services (MJHS), inpatient palliative care at Catholic Health Good Shepard Hospice, and long-term care at Calvary Hospital .

Fellows train with highly expert and diverse faculty, made up of physicians, nurse practitioners, and social workers who 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. Throughout the program, fellows participate in the following clinical rotations.

Adult Palliative Care Inpatient Consultation Service Rotation

Fellows complete seven months of rotation on the adult palliative care inpatient consultation service at NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island, 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.

Ambulatory Palliative Care Rotation

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.

Home Hospice Rotation

Fellows rotate on the MJHS home hospice service in Nassau and Queens 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 Bernard Lee, 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 service 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.

Ambulatory Palliative Care Path

During this six-week optional intensive, fellows gain preparation in outpatient palliative and supportive care. During this rotation, fellows 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. 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.

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. We offer four weeks of elective rotations in medical oncology, gynecological oncology, radiation oncology, pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary fibrosis, congestive heart failure, and wound healing.

Those who take part in the optional six-week ambulatory path also complete the fellowship in one year, but with an added focus on supportive oncology and telemedicine. Training experiences on the ambulatory path include performing preoperative evaluations for LVAD implantations, as well as collaborating with supportive care programs at NYU Langone Health Home Care and outpatient social workers. Fellows also learn more deeply about clinical management issues such as prescribing transmucosal immediate release fentanyl, managing opioid risk assessments, and co-prescribing naloxone.

Core curriculum sessions address symptom management, grief and bereavement, spiritual assessment, communication skills, and socio-structural considerations in palliative care. The bioethics curriculum extends across the didactic curriculum and is applied during work rounds and through bedside teaching. Each week, fellows join the interdisciplinary team meetings with the palliative care team to discuss in greater depth complex clinical cases. Fellows also participate in monthly bioethics work group meetings, the clinical ethics case consultation service, and monthly pain committee meetings.

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.

Didactic Learning

In addition to clinical training, fellows take part in formal didactic activities throughout the year, including a regular lecture series, journal clubs, and case discussions. Fellows lead the interdisciplinary Palliative Medicine Journal Club and collaborate with other divisions on Pulmonary–Critical Care and Oncology Journal Clubs. Palliative Care Grand Rounds is held monthly and focuses on critical review of the palliative care literature and academic research presentations by regional and national leaders in the field.

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.

Ongoing research projects include cancer care after rehabilitation, outpatient palliative telemedicine, and assessing the confidence level of internal medicine residents while managing opioid therapy in patients with pain.

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.