Academic time
Once per week, fellows are allotted a half-day to work on scholarly activity, attend didactics or communication training, work on a quality improvement project, and self-care. This time can also be used for bereavement calls. The fellow will be expected to report progress and seek guidance from the Program Director during the regularly scheduled PD-Fellow meetings.
Palliative care clinic
The Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center palliative care outpatient clinic is a well-established clinical practice that provides palliative medicine services for patients living with a variety of potentially life-limiting conditions. Clinics are primarily held in 3R but some patients are seen in 3K, the site of the Hematology-Oncology outpatient services.
Patients are seen in close collaboration with primary clinical teams and specialists and with the Faculty Palliative Medicine physicians and advance practice nurses, chaplaincy, and social work, as well as providers from other medical disciplines. Care in the outpatient clinic involves pain and symptom management, advance care planning, support in decision-making and counseling regarding life closure and bereavement issues. The clinic has maintained its ability to support patients via teleHealth, telephone office or in person visits.
Fellows rotate quarterly with different faculty to gain a broad range of outpatient experience with every effort made to have fellows follow the same patients throughout the year. Fellows planning to pursue a career in outpatient palliative medicine have the opportunity to be in clinic 2 half-days a week (instead of the required one half-day per week) in the 2nd half of the year.