Ambulatory Experience- longitudinal + 1 block

Description:
The ambulatory clinic experience will be at least 6 months and is comprised of two components:

1. The ambulatory palliative care clinic at Kansas City Hospice will have the fellow and the IDT seeing patients who will be earlier in their disease course than hospitalized patients or hospice patients. The focus will be on symptom management and advanced care planning. Patients will be referred from multiple community physicians, and the fellow will be able to act as the primary consultant for the patient with attending oversight. The fellow will be able to see patients with the IDT over the course of the fellowship, with continuity being the major objective. The fellow will be assigned to the palliative care clinic for ½ day sessions during her inpatient hospice facility rotations given the proximity of the clinic and the facility, but the fellow will be able to see patients in the palliative care clinic regardless of current rotation.  Scheduling will be flexible with the fellow’s current rotation so as not to sacrifice one learning experience for another.
2. The ambulatory clinic 4 week block selective rotation exposes the fellow to a wide variety of patient populations with palliative care needs, including oncology, integrative medicine, geriatrics, and both chronic pain clinic and interventional pain clinic, and focused bereavement group exposures. The fellow will select from a variety of different clinics suiting his or her educational needs and confirm the selections, goals and objectives with the program director who will work with the subspecialists to create a customized template. The focus of this rotation is the breadth of ambulatory care opportunities in palliative medicine, and to see how it is integrated into practice by subspecialists from a variety of backgrounds.

Fellow Responsibilities

Longitudinal component: The fellow will be expected to see patients in ambulatory Palliative Care clinic during Inpatient hospice blocks and occasionally on other rotations when appropriate and feasible to coordinate with other learning and service activities.

Ambulatory block component: The fellow will be expected to attend the assigned clinics and complete assessments/documentation in a timely fashion, under the direction of the attending physicians for the clinic venues.