Hospice & Palliative Medicine Fontana Medical Center - Curriculum

Goals and Objectives

The Kaiser Permanente Fontana Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship provides broad clinical training experiences for our fellows to experience the full spectrum of what early, integrated palliative care services can provide for patients with serious illness.

Weekly didactics are held with our core palliative medicine faculty, geriatric medicine faculty, and in coordination with our partner Hospice and Palliative Medicine programs at the Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center. We want to set our fellows up for success in their careers by providing opportunities for mock interviews, quality improvement initiatives, scholarship rounds, and leadership rounds where they can learn from established HPM leaders within Kaiser Permanente.

Didactics

• Core Palliative Medicine Lecture Series
• Program Director Rounds
• Scholar and Leadership Rounds
• Journal Clubs
• Serious Illness Communication Workshops (Regional)

Fellows will rotate at the Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center and nearby Ontario Medical Center for their inpatient palliative medicine experiences. Fellows will spend a minimum of four months at both sites, under the supervision of our core hospice and palliative medicine faculty. We have the unique ability to follow patients seen on the inpatient consult service longitudinally after discharge in the outpatient palliative clinic, home-based palliative care program, and/or on home hospice services due to our position within the Kaiser Permanente integrated health system. To provide this continuity, our fellows will spend alternating weeks on inpatient palliative consultations, and the subsequent week on the home-based palliative care and home hospice services. This provides increased opportunities for fellows to follow inpatients discharged to a home palliative or home hospice service, and thus appreciate the nuances and gratification of truly being a key part of a patient’s care. Inpatient calls are taken one weekend per month (Saturday-Sunday, attending co-rounds 9am-1pm with remainder of call taken at home until 11pm). Fellows will also spend a continuity day every week in the outpatient palliative clinic, where early palliative care establishment and rapid symptom intervention is taught.