Every week, fellows have a dedicated half-day of workshops with the goal of enhancing the knowledge and skills critical to the clinical practices of hospice and palliative medicine. All of these workshops are interactive and taught by our experienced interprofessional educators and leaders within the UVM Health Network. The academic half-day consists of three components: evidence-based medicine, core workshops and our wellness curriculum.
The evidence-based medicine curriculum prepares fellows to make evidence-based decisions about the care of patients with serious illness. During the year you will participate in a journal club, led by one of our palliative care researchers, which will include sentinel articles in the field of Palliative Medicine. You will also present at Fellow Report, where you will share a clinical case with a correlated clinical question. Finally, you will be supported in completing a quality improvement project through monthly project management workshops and didactics about the science of quality improvement.
Core workshops include sessions on managing the physical stressors of serious illness such as including pain, dyspnea, nausea and vomiting, and constipation management as well as management of the psychosocial and existential stressors of serious illness. Workshops also cover prognostication and management on specific serious illnesses such as COPD or heart failure as well as hospice regulations, end-of-life-care, and person-centered communication skills.
The academic half-day will end with the Wellness Curriculum, a series of workshops dedicated to mindfulness, narrative medicine, resilience, and empathy. Through this series, fellows will receive trainings through narrative medicine, processing groups, mindfulness practice, and sessions on physician advocacy.
