Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship

About the SPC team

The Supportive & Palliative Care (SPC) team at Baylor University Medical Center Dallas, part of Baylor Scott & White Healthcare System is a robust multidisciplinary team, serving both the inpatient and outpatient settings.

The inpatient team consists of a consult team that serves patients throughout the 914 licensed beds. The average number of inpatients seen by the SPC consult team is about 185 per month, and consults are received from a wide variety of medical specialties caring for hospitalized patients.

Our team is integrated into the care of advanced heart failure patients being evaluated for surgical advanced heart failure therapies and we collaborate closely with all intensive care teams (surgical, medical, neurological). Our fellowship program and institution also has both a strong oncology and transplant presence, with Texas Oncology originating on our campus and one of the most robust and advanced transplant programs in the nation (bone marrow, heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas, and uterus).

Fellows will round with board-certified/board-eligible, fellowship trained palliative medicine faculty on both the primary service and consult service during their training and have opportunities to learn alongside medical students, residents and fellows rotating with the team. Our unique "fellows as teachers" program equips fellows to develop and hone skills as early clinician-educators.

The multidisciplinary professionals composing the SPC team include: chaplains, licensed clinical social workers, child life specialists and advanced practice professionals (APPs, to include both APRNs and PAs).

Outpatient clinic

The outpatient SPC clinic operates 5 days a week, seeing a variety of patients referred to us for ongoing complex symptom management and longitudinal goals of care exploration.

On average, fellows will participate in one clinic session (one clinic session = 4 hours) each week during their inpatient rotation and beginning after their second month of fellowship.

For true continuity purposes, fellows have the opportunity to see patients across the multiple settings will be paired with a single attending, in order to accomplish as much longitudinal exposure, of patients in order to accomplish as much longitudinal exposure, of patients, as possible.

Hospicio

Fellows work in both outpatient and inpatient hospice settings in coordination with local hospice agencies, and receive training in acute symptom management, evidence-based end of life care, and transitions of care for patients with serious illness.

Fellows will have a 3 week immersion experience with Visiting Nurses Association (VNA) Hospice and a total of 7 weeks of outpatient hospice with VNA for a longitudinal experience managing hospice patients, including home visits, and attending IDT meetings under the supervision of the hospice medical director team.

Additional rotations

Fellows will also garner geriatric patient exposure and management through a combined approach of a geriatric house calls program, and nursing home/long-term care rotation.

The pediatric experience of the HPM fellowship is a collaborative effort with Cook’s Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth. The total duration of the rotation is 4 weeks and will entail both inpatient and outpatient clinical support of children with life limiting illnesses.