Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship

About the Program


The University of Iowa Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship was accredited by the ACGME in 2013 and is affiliated with the University of Iowa Internal Medicine Residency, an ACGME-accredited training program.

Mission and Goals
  • The mission of our fellowship training program in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at the University of Iowa is to provide an academically and clinically rigorous training program. This includes the essential elements of hospice and palliative medicine as well as advanced training in clinical palliative medicine, research, and administration.
  • The focus of the program is to provide the trainee with clinical knowledge and judgment, professionalism, interpersonal skills, and abilities that will continue to mature throughout their career.
  • Fellows will train with Hospice and Palliative care interdisciplinary teams.   They will be exposed to a diverse patient population, gaining skills in comprehensive care of these patients in inpatient, outpatient and home settings.

Program Strengths

Experienced Interdisciplinary teams

The fellow works with interdisciplinary teams at multiple sites. The team members include:

  • Chaplains
  • Music therapists
  • Nurses
  • Nurse practitioners
  • Pharmacists
  • Physicians
  • Social Workers

Faculty diversity

Although Palliative Medicine is administratively housed in Internal Medicine, there are multiple medical specialties represented on our faculty: Internal Medicine, Geriatrics, Family Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Emergency Medicine, Infectious Disease and Obstetric/Gynecology. In addition we are able to utilize the expertise of the palliative pharmacist, as well as staff with additional ethics training. Different points of view from team members promote creative thinking and problem solving as they encourage one another to share their different points of view.

Jump to:

Fellows as Clinician Educators Program (FACE)

For future clinician-educators.

Interdisciplinary Fellowship Conference

Common curriculum for fellows in a divisions of the Department.

Didactic Curriculum

Scheduled Didactic Learning
  1. Palliative Care Journal Club
  2. Case Presentation Conference
  3. Supportive and Palliative Care Interdisciplinary Conference
  4. Ethics Conference
  5. Fellows' Core Conference
Regional/National Conferences
  1. American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) Annual Assembly
  2. PalliTALK: A Communication Workshop for Practicing Providers @University of Wisconsin-Madison
  3. UI Children's Hospital Pediatric Palliative Care Annual Conference
A fellow presenting a poster at a national meeting

Clinical Curriculum

Our 13-block clinical curriculum includes:

  • 1 block of Orientation
  • 6 blocks of inpatient adult consultation service
  • 4 blocks of hospice/long-term care
  • 1 block of pediatric palliative care
  • 1 block of elective

In addition, fellows have a one half-day per week longitudinal outpatient clinic throughout the year.

Teaching Sites and Partners

University of Iowa Health Care logo

University of Iowa Health Care

University of Iowa Health Care is the only combined academic and Level 1 Trauma institution in the state. UI Health Care serves a large geographical area, accepting patient transfers and referrals from across the state of Iowa and surrounding states. The resulting patient population is culturally, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse providing opportunities to see patients with a broad spectrum of serious illnesses.

UI Health Care Medical Center and UI Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital together deliver high quality care in collaboration with University of Iowa Physicians, the state’s largest multi-specialty medical and surgical group practice, composed of UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine faculty physicians. Working together as University of Iowa Health Care, these partners provide patient care, conduct biomedical research, and train the next generation of health professionals.

Iowa City Hsopice logo

Iowa City Hospice

A not-for-profit hospice that began serving patients in 1983. It provides care to patients in Johnson County and 6 other surrounding Iowa counties. The overriding goal of this experience is for the fellow to gain sufficient learning to be able to step into the role of a hospice medical director.