Our yearlong Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship trains physicians to perform compassionate, whole-patient assessments and manage all aspects of care to improve the quality of life of patients and families who are facing the challenges of serious illness and injury. The program, offered through NYU Langone’s Division of Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Care, is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

As a fellow, you receive training in the core domains of hospice and palliative medicine, including assessment and management of pain and symptoms, prognostication, communication, and psychosocial–spiritual care. You also learn how to work as part of an interdisciplinary team, care for the imminently dying and bereaved, and manage care across various settings, including hospice.

Our program serves as a training model for palliative care clinicians who want to work in a variety of settings and with culturally and ethnically diverse populations. Our interdisciplinary team approach to patient- and family-centered care engages nurses, social workers, chaplains, and other specialists to enrich the clinical experience.

Fellows work under the leadership of Susan E. Cohen, MD, fellowship director, and a cadre of experienced and dedicated faculty. Fellowship training includes close observation and feedback by mentors and faculty, meaningful didactics, and observed structured clinical scenarios in a state-of-the-art simulation center. To further hone your skills, all hospice and palliative medicine fellows have the opportunity to teach and mentor medical students, residents, and physicians.

Clinical Training

Our clinical rotations provide exposure to a diverse patient population across a wide range of settings, giving fellows an opportunity to learn about social determinants of health, cultural aspects of care, and bioethics. During training, you develop the skills to negotiate some of the most complex issues related to culture, language, poverty, and access to medical care for those coping with serious illness.

Fellowship rotations include palliative care consultation, inpatient and outpatient palliative care clinics, long-term care, and hospice, as well as addiction, interventional pain management, pediatric palliative care, and geriatric palliative care.

Clinical training occurs at the following sites:

• NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue
• Tisch Hospital and Kimmel Pavilion
• VA NY Harbor Healthcare System
• St. Albans Community Living Center of the VA NY Harbor Healthcare System
• Visiting Nurse Service of New York Hospice and Palliative Care
• Perlmutter Cancer Center
• NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn

Didactic Training

Palliative care didactic conferences are an integral part of our program. Fellows attend Geriatrics Medicine Grand Rounds and Palliative Care Grand Rounds, clinical case conferences, journal club, self-care debriefing sessions, and a core curriculum didactic series, which includes focused training on specialized palliative care topics as well as medical ethics and ethics consultation. In addition, fellows attend conferences specific to the site of the clinical rotation.

Scholarly Project

All hospice and palliative medicine fellows undertake a quality improvement project during the year and submit their work for publication or presentation before graduation. Funds for travel to selected regional and national academic conferences—including those of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, which our fellows regularly attend—are available.

Eligibility Requirements

Eligible candidates have completed an ACGME-accredited residency in one of the 10 hospice and palliative medicine subspecialties approved by the American Board of Medical Specialties. We have trained fellows from the primary specialties of internal medicine, family medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, emergency medicine, neurology, and psychiatry; we are open to considering candidates from other eligible primary specialties.

NYU Langone does not offer H-1B sponsorship for house staff, residents, or fellows. J-1 sponsorship is available through the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). A New York State medical license must be obtained before beginning the fellowship.

Application Process

We accept four fellows each year into the program. Applications are accepted through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). The ERAS application season begins in early June, and fellowship candidates can submit applications to our program in early July. We begin reviewing applications on July 15 and invite promising applicants to interview on a rolling basis.

As a candidate on your interview day, you can expect to tour our facilities; meet our program director, program faculty, and current trainees; and share your background, skills, motivation to pursue fellowship, and future goals with us through a series of interviews.

Eligible candidates are selected based on their preparedness, ability, aptitude, academic credentials, communication skills, and personal qualities such as motivation and integrity. We do not discriminate on the basis of age, race, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability, veteran status, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity; we encourage applications from all interested candidates.

All of the fellowships in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Palliative Care participate in the Medical Specialties Matching Program through the National Resident Matching Program. Rank lists are finalized in late October or early November of each year.

We hope that you become a part of our next fellowship class!

Contact Us

For more information about the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship, please contact Dr. Cohen at Susan.Cohen@NYULangone.org or 212-562-5278. You can also contact Sofiya Volflenok, fellowship coordinator, at Sofiya.Volflenok@NYULangone.org or 212-263-6613.