Getting More Informed on Palliative/Hospice Medicine

[sunlioness]

Hey all-

I'm currently a general adult inpatient psychiatrist. I enjoy my work and am not in the position to be thinking about fellowship right now, but for some reason I do keep coming back to the idea of going into hospice/palliative medicine at some undefined future point. I did rotations both as a medical student and during residency and really loved them. So what I am asking for is any resources just for staying in the "loop". Any particular journals, professional organizations, etc. that I can read/be involved with in order to develop this interest and see if it actually ends up going anywhere.

Thank you!

SL

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[mophead]

The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (aahpm.org) is the main professional organization.

One free resource that could hook you up with the palliative medicine world is the blog Pallimed.org, where they post reviews about many of the groundbreaking studies, as well as general news from the palliative medicine world.

Good luck!

 

[sunlioness]

Very cool. Thank you, mophead!

 

[YogiDO]

I'd love to hear from a Psychiatrist who is doing palliative medicine or hospice. Do you do essentially the same work as an IM or FP would do after a fellowship, or do you still keep your niche as a psychiatrist? For those who did do a fellowship, is the fellowship psych specific or the same as the other fellows. I just want to see how feasible a career in palliative medicine and hospice would be as a psychiatrist. Or is it better to simply go FP? thanks.

 

[sunlioness]

To my knowledge, the fellowship is the fellowship no matter which specialty you come from. I believe it is open to Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, Anethesiology, Psychiatry, Neurology and PM&R graduates.

I'm not a palliative/hospice physician, so don't quote me on this, but I would imagine that while the fellowship training is the same, your personal practice style and where you chose to work would be largely informed by your original field. What draws me to the field is that I enjoy counseling people around the grief process, working with families, working in a team environment, addressing patients'/families' spiritual/existential issues, etc. And my interest in those things is probably part of why I enjoy psychiatry because they can come up a lot here too.

Just my two cents, which may be worth even less. All of the palliative docs I have ever worked with in residency/med school came that route via internal medicine. So my experience is limited.