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
• NYC Health + Hospitals/Gouverneur
• 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

Thank you for your interest in NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship. We are pleased to offer four positions to begin on July 1 of each new academic year.

Eligibility

Applicants must have completed three years of accredited postgraduate education in either internal medicine, emergency medicine, neurology, psychiatry, or physical medicine and rehabilitation residency.

Applications

We only accept applications through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS), and ask that you submit an application form through the myERAS portal. We begin reviewing applications on July 16 and invite promising applicants to interview on a rolling basis, although we strongly encourage early submissions. 

The following documents must accompany your application:

• official medical school transcripts
• official test transcripts for all examinations that apply to you:
• Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination of the United States (COMLEX-USA)
• Federal Licensing Exam (FLEX)
• Foreign Medical Graduate Examination in the Medical Sciences (FMGEMS)
• Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada (LMCC)
• National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME)
• National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME)
• S. Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE)
• a dean’s letter and three additional letters of recommendation, one of which must be from the program director
• your CV
• personal statement
• valid Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) certificate, if you graduated from a medical school outside the United States
• a copy of your medical school diploma is required if you match with our program

We conduct interviews between September and November of the fellowship application cycle.

We participate in the subspecialty match program sponsored by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). Therefore, all candidates must register through the NRMP. We do not accept applications outside ERAS and NRMP.

Contact Us

For more information about the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship, please contact Susan Cohen, MD, fellowship program director, at Susan.Cohen@NYULangone.org or Ambika Babbar, MD, associate program director, at Ambika.Babbar@NYUlangone.org. You can also contact Sofiya Volflenok, senior fellowship program coordinator, at Sofiya.Volflenok@NYULangone.org.