Fellows will also experience several workshops throughout the year dedicated to advanced skills and leadership development. Some of these retreats will be in coordination with the fellowship programs from Dartmouth, Maine Medical Center, and Androscoggin. These retreats are not only designed to learn from experts across our region but to also build a community across our fellowship programs.
Regional Retreats
Fellows will also experience several workshops throughout the year dedicated to advanced skills and leadership development. Some of these retreats will be in coordination with the fellowship programs from Dartmouth, Maine Medical Center, and Androscoggin. These retreats are not only designed to learn from experts across our region but to also build a community across our fellowship programs.
At the beginning of the year, you will attend a 2-day workshop that is dedicated to the basics of symptom management, communication skills and consultation practices in palliative medicine.
In collaboration with VitalTalk and TalkVermont, a two-day regional retreat in the middle of the year is held to hone your skills in navigating family meetings that include responding to emotion, sharing serious news, eliciting goals and values, recommending care plans and mitigating conflict. We also hold a workshop around Medical Aide and Dying (MAID) to assist you in your understanding of the process and legal/ethical frameworks that surround MAID laws in the United States.
Fellows will also have the opportunity to grow their own skills around teaching, research, quality improvement and understanding population health in serious illness through Leadership Development workshops.
In the last few months of the year, our regional retreat will be held once last time to focus on the skills in becoming an attending physician. You experience sessions on triage, billing and coding, mitigating team conflict, and reflection on leadership and communication styles.
You will also have the opportunity to develop your skills as future leader in palliative care focusing on skills in medical education, clinical operations, population health, quality improvement and team management.
Throughout the year, fellows will attend workshops dedicated to improving their skills around teaching including workshops on how to give a talk, how to facilitate small groups, and how to give feedback. Each year, our fellows will attend the Essentials of Teaching and Assessment Course through the Teaching Academy at the Larner College of Medicine.
Along with participating in their own quality improvement project, you will also receive workshops around system approaches to quality improvement, participate in a mock root-cause-analysis, and analyze safety reports that relate to patient with serious illness.
Throughout the year, a series of workshops is dedicated to examining palliative care on the population health level, including various models of payment and health care delivery for patients with serious illness.
TalkVermont workshop attendees in discussion.
Stephen Berns, MD, GME Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fellowship program director.
Two Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship faculty present at a TalkVermont advanced workshop.
Hospice & Palliative Care Medicine fellows in discussion at workshop.
GME Hospice & Palliative Medicine fellows grouped at two picnic tables.
TalkVermont advanced workshop attendees.