This is unpublished

Introduction

Program Contact

Dr. Lianne Hirano
Program Director
lhirano@uw.edu

Dr. David Gruenewald 
Co-Director
david.gruenewald@va.gov

Dr. Paula McPoland
Associate Director,
Pediatric Palliative Fellowship Track

Paula.McPoland@seattlechildrens.org

Shinetra Pryor
Program Administrator
gerhpm@medicine.washington.edu

The University of Washington Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program utilizes comprehensive inpatient, outpatient, long term care, hospice, and community experiences in several facilities. A diverse patient population enhances fellow experience and training. We have strong faculty role models in research, education, and clinical care for our fellows, who will be the future leaders of palliative medicine.

Fellows encounter and engage with diverse patient populations, including but not limited to failed bone marrow transplant patients, immigrant, refugee, and socio- economically deprived persons, veterans, and profoundly ill children.

Interdisciplinary Team

Interdisciplinary team meetings at several training venues offer fellows the opportunity to build skills as team members and as team leaders. For example, at Providence Hospice of Seattle, the IDT consists of 20-30 members – 6 hospice teams; social worker, nurse, aide, chaplains, pharmacist, occupational therapist, grief support staff, staff from volunteers division and Safe Crossings for children close to hospice clients, Medical Director, a manager, and trainees from several disciplines; medical students, social work students.

All hospice clients are discussed every other week regarding their clinical and psychosocial condition as well as that of loved ones. Fellows learn the dynamics of IDT, the function of members, and provide direct input as a team member and leader in the roles of hospice physician and Medical Director, respectively.

Teaching Skills

Fellows gain important teaching skills during the fellowship. During consultation and hospice visits, they gain experiential knowledge by seeing teaching skills modeled by hospice staff and faculty. These skills are expanded in more formal settings such as grand rounds, professional development seminars, team meetings and journal club.

By experiencing the talents of faculty and hospice team members during consultation and visits with patient and families, and by engaging in these activities as an active team member, fellows improve their skills through modeling and feedback from other team members. Formal feedback is also available in formal evaluation via MedHub.

Conferences

  • Grand Rounds

  • Resident Conferences

  • Palliative Care Rounds

  • Ethics Seminar