Hospice news

Abstract

Growing awareness of the field, expanded fellowship opportunities, an aging population, and the lure of available full-time positions are all serving to advance palliative medicine as a viable career choice for young doctors. As early as 1991, few training programs existed in the US for medical school graduates interested in palliative medicine. Currently, however, there are 45 palliative care fellowship programs nationwide, according to the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. Palliative medicine educators and specialists report that they are now routinely contacted by students and residents interested in exploring palliative medicine as a career. “A senior medical student recently called me to set up a one-on-one meeting. He’s interested in finding out where the field is going. Will he find jobs? How much will he get paid?” says David Weissman, MD, who coordinates the Palliative Care Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. “I’ll tell him that there are way more jobs in palliative care right now than people trained to fill them.” In the past, physicians attracted to end-of-life care were often motivated by personal experiences, but demand for such services, due in part to the aging Boomer population, has pushed the specialty into the mainstream. A fellow of Dr. Weissman’s, Chad Farmer, MD, has begun job hunting as he finishes his degree in bioethics and wraps up a two-year palliative care fellowship. “I have found that the market is wide open for anyone with fellowship training. Right now, demand is out ahead of supply,” says Farmer. Alexie Cintron, MD, is a palliative care fellow at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He has already completed a research fellowship in general internal medicine, which explored end-of-life issues such as the use of advance directives and patients’ decisions to enter hospice care. Says Cintron, “I actually didn’t know there were palliative care fellowships until the second year of my first fellowship in medical research. But I really did want to learn about research methodology and get into the health policy arena,” for which the internal medicine fellowship will be helpful. “The palliative care field is still growing. We haven’t put all the pieces together yet. That’s what’s so exciting—we’re making changes as we go along.” (Source: American Medical News, January 26, 2004.)