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Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship

A fellowship program for physicians who are interested in becoming board certified in Hospice and Palliative Medicine

The Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program strives to provide exemplary multidisciplinary clinical care to seriously ill patients across the continuum of care, deliver effective educational programs and promote the well-being of providers, patients, families and communities.

The overall goals and objectives for hospice and palliative medicine fellows are to achieve significant experience in the diagnosis and ongoing management of adult and pediatric patients with multiple medical conditions across a variety of health care settings. These goals and objectives are primarily aimed at gaining experience with the daily management and provision of continuity care to patients with life-limiting illnesses through the use of multidisciplinary care teams assembled to meet the unique medical, spiritual, and emotional quality of life wishes of the patient. Fellows will be a valuable member of the patient's diverse care team which also includes social workers, chaplains, family members, and specialists from a variety of medical specialties.

The Hospice and Palliative Care Fellowship is a newly established ACGME Accredited program in 2020. The Fellowship enrolled its first two fellows July 2021. Fellows who successfully complete the program will be board certification eligible.

Curriculum

The Supportive & Palliative Care team at Scott & White Medical Center supports a multidisciplinary team in both the inpatient and outpatient settings. The inpatient team consists of a consult team and a primary service, which staffs 10 swing beds that function as a Palliative & Comfort Care Unit. The average number of patients seen by the SPC consult team is about 115 per month, and consults are received from a wide variety of medical specialties caring for hospitalized patients. Our team is integrated into the care of advanced heart failure patients being evaluated for surgical advanced heart failure therapies and we collaborate closely with all intensive care teams. Fellows will round with board-certified/board-eligible, fellowship trained palliative medicine faculty on both the primary service and consult service during their training and have opportunities to learn alongside residents and fellows rotating with the team. 

The outpatient program supports a co-located clinic in the Vasicek Cancer Center and an embedded clinic within the Advanced Heart Failure clinic. On average, fellows will participate in 2 clinic sessions (1 clinic session = 4 hours) each week during their 2-week ambulatory blocks, one session in the Cancer Center and one session in the heart failure clinic. Fellows will also manage a population of home-based palliative care patients in collaboration with an attending. House calls will take place ½ day per week depending on patient needs & volumes.

The multidisciplinary team supporting both the inpatient team and clinic team include: chaplain, licensed clinical social worker, child life specialist and psychologist.

Fellows will spend 4 weeks rotating at McLane Children’s Hospital for the pediatric palliative care experience. The pediatric education is supplemented by periodic perinatal palliative care consults and continuity visits with pediatric & neonatal hospice patients.

Fellows will spend 4 weeks rotating at a long-term care facility and collaborate with faculty from the Division of Geriatrics.

Fellows will have a 2 week immersion experience with Baylor Scott & White Hospice and then spend 2 days during each outpatient block with BSWH Hospice as a longitudinal experience managing hospice patients, including home visits, and attending IDT meetings under the supervision of the hospice medical director team. 

Fellows have 27, two-week rotations that alternate between inpatient and outpatient experiences.  Training requirements fulfill the ACGME standards as found in section IV.C of the Hospice and Palliative Common Program Requirements.

  • Inpatient = 4 months
  • Hospice = 10 weeks
  • Geriatrics = 4 weeks
  • Pediatrics = 4 weeks
  • Outpatient = 9 weeks

Fellows will have protected educational time on Tuesday and Thursday to attend the noon didactic lecture that will include lectures, journal clubs and board review sessions. Monthly workshops cover the following five domains: Communication Skills, Essentials of Practice, Quality Improvement/Research, Self-Care and Ethics.

Facility

Scott & White Medical Center in Temple, Texas is the primary clinical location for the fellowship. Other locations include: Advanced Heart Failure Clinic, Vasicek Cancer Center, Baylor Scott & White Hospice.

Baylor Scott & White Health Hospice cares for about 185 patients and their families in the Central Texas area with a service area spanning 21 counties.

  • Train at one of U.S. News & World Report's top hospitals in Texas

    Baylor Scott & White Medical Center – Temple is a 640-bed teaching and research hospital with a Level I trauma center.

    Snapshot of our campus

How to Apply

All applications must be submitted via the ERAS system. The fellowship Match will take place in December 2021.

Visit ERAS to apply

Application Eligibility and Requirements

  • Completion of an ACGME-accredited residency program, AOA- approved residency program, ACGME-I residency program, RCPSC or CFPC approved residency in Canada.
  • Ability to provide verified ACGME, ACME-I or CanMEDS Milestone evaluations from the core residency program.
  • Completion of a residency in one of the following specialties: child neurology, family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, physical medicine and rehabilitation, neurology, or radiation oncology; or, at least three clinical years in residency program in anesthesiology, emergency medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, radiology, or surgery.
  • Complete ERAS application.
Learn more about Baylor Scott & White's housestaff appointment eligibility, including guidelines for international medical graduates.

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Working at Baylor Scott & White Health

Compensation and Benefits

In addition to competitive stipends, we offer our fellows a full menu of employee benefits. We help offset the cost of many of these benefits; others are options you can choose to pay for yourself.

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Life in Temple

Temple uniquely offers a combination of access to big-city conveniences while maintaining a small-town atmosphere. Temple has also been ranked among the Top 20 Fastest Growing Cities in Texas and one of America's most affordable places of 2015.

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Why Baylor Scott & White

As the largest not-for-profit health care system in Texas and one of the largest in the United States, Baylor Scott & White Health includes 48 hospitals, more than 900 patient care sites, more than 6,000 active physicians and more than 40,000 employees.

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