Hospice and Palliative Care Fellowship | Department of Internal Medicine | UC Davis Health

Welcome to the University of California at Davis Health System Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program.  We would be delighted to have you as a colleague and look forward to working together with you if accepted to our program.  Our innovative fellowship is designed to prepare you for excellence in clinical care, teaching, scholarship, research, quality improvement, and health care administration.  Our goal is to mentor fellows toward a leadership role in the field of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.

The fellowship will take place at a multitude of sites and settings, and skills gained will vary according to the goals of that rotation.  Rotational sites will endeavor to integrate essential concepts across core competencies to develop well rounded fellows.  Settings in which these skills will be cultivated include:

• UC Davis Health, University of California, Davis, Sacramento Campus
• VA Northern California Health Care System, 
• Kaiser Permanente North Valley, Sacramento and Roseville Campuses
• AccentCare Hospice, Community Hospice Program
• Yolo Hospice, Community Hospice Program
• Hospice of the East Bay, Community Hospice Program
• Kaiser Permanente Hospice Programs
• UC Davis Home Based Palliative Care and Hospice Programs

There will be required regular core curricular seminars, journal clubs, and other didactic sessions dedicated to the acquisition of the skills demanded of future Hospice and Palliative Medicine leaders.  These activities will also aim to enhance the fellows’ pedagogical and scholarship skills.  Research skill development is mandatory and is fostered through guided mentoring of individual research projects.  Faculty advisors will guide fellows at all stages of a project, from defining the question of interest to preparing and presenting the findings.

Teaching medical students, residents, and peers is an integral and required component of our fellowship program. You will receive special training in the educational pedagogy of clinical teaching in general and specifically as it relates to Hospice and Palliative Medicine. You will be expected to teach and faculty will observe you while you train our medical students, house staff, and your peers.  Faculty will also work with you to optimize your clinical teaching skills.  In addition, administrative skills and quality improvement skills will be developed through graded responsibilities in clinical and teaching programs, as well as participation in quality improvement projects.  Furthermore, adequate unstructured time is allocated throughout the fellowship for scholarly work.  The optimization of this time, which can be tailored to meet your individual education goals, can be coordinated in conjunction with the program director.

You are the leaders of tomorrow.  The field of Hospice and Palliative Medicine is still in its infancy and needs a group of passionate and committed leaders to help the field grow and develop into a robust medical sub-specialty.  To this end, you will receive ongoing intense mentoring to help you further develop your professional portfolio and leadership skills, thereby equipping you with the requisite skills to shape the field of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and its future.

We hope that you can join us as a Fellow of Hospice and Palliative Medicine here at the University of California at Davis Health System.

Warmest regards,

John MacMillan, M.D.
Fellowship Program Director
UCDHS Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program

Fellows accepted to the program will be required to rotate through the following venues.

• Inpatient Hospice Unit and SNF Palliative Care Consultations (VANCHCS)
• Palliative Care Inpatient Consults (VANCHCS, UCDH, KP, Sacramento/Roseville)
• Inpatient and Outpatient Pain Service (UCDH, Sacramento)
• Long Term Care Units (VANCHCS)
• Kaiser Contracted Skilled Nursing Facilities (KP, Sacramento/Roseville)
• Home Hospice (UCD Hospice, Season’s Hospice, Yolo Hospice, Sacramento/Yolo)
• Home Based Palliative Care (UCDH, VANCHCS, Sacramento)
• Outpatient Subspecialty Clinics (UCDH, VANCHCS, KP, Sacramento)
• Outpatient Primary Palliative Care Clinic (VANCHCS, KP, Sacramento)
• Outpatient Consultative Supportive Medicine Clinic (UCDH, Sacramento)

Core Topics

• Goals of Care
• Family Meetings
• Conflict Management
• Negotiations
• Life Sustaining Treatments
• Symptom Management
• Pain
• Nausea / Vomiting
• Shortness of Breath
• Delirium
• Wounds
• Palliative Emergencies
• Malignant Bowel Obstruction
• Transitions of Care
• Prognostication
• Advance Care Planning
• Resource Management
• Hospice Care
• Interdisciplinary Care
• Biopsychosocial Aspects of Care (Depression, Anxiety)
• Biospiritual Aspects of Care (Grief, Loss, Loneliness, Meaning)
• Bioethical Aspects of Care (Decision Making)

Requirements

Per ACGME, all fellows are expected to complete and submit a minimum of one scholarly project by the end of the fellowship. Fellows will participate in monthly Research in Progress sessions with the Fellowship Research Director.

Description

Scholarly activity is an integral and required part of this fellowship. Scholarly activity can be any academic work that furthers the field of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, but typically involves research projects, quality improvement initiatives, health care administration activities or educational endeavors. Fellows will be expected to participate in two scholarly activities, one that is fellow-initiated and the other that is run by the fellowship program, such as the Palliative Care Mini Medical School or the Palliative Care Alliance in Research and Education Annual Conference. There will be protected time for these activities. For both fellow-initiated and pre-approved projects, fellows will have a dedicated half-day per week to work with an assigned mentor to further the goals of the endeavor, and will have the option of dedicated block time to work on his/her project. Fellows are expected to generate an end product from the scholarly activity, such as an abstract, publication, presentation at a conference, or project.

Requirements

Fellows must declare whether they prefer to do clinical electives or spend time working on their scholarly project during their Fellow's Choice Block.  For clinical electives, Fellows will be given adequate time to explore the intersection of Hospice and Palliative Medicine with other subspecialties.

Description

If a Fellow chooses to spend the Fellow's Choice Block partly or fully on scholarly work, the Fellow must document what they will be doing on a day to day basis and must check in weekly with the Research Coordinator. 

If a Fellow chooses to explore clinical electives, a number of potential choices exist and is limited mainly by availability and fellow creativity.  Both local electives and away electives are available. Some typical examples include:

• Ethics Consultations
• Interventional Pain Service or Comprehensive Pain Service
• Psychiatry or Psycho-Oncology Clinic
• Medical Oncology Clinic
• Radiation Oncology Clinic
• Pediatric Electives (Oncology, Neurology, PICU/NICU)
• Neurology Clinic (ALS or Movement Disorder Clinics)
• Wound Care Clinic
• Medical Subspecialty Clinics (Pulmonology, Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Nephrology)

Program Leadership

John MacMillan, M.D.
UC Davis Associate Clinical Professor in Internal Medicine
Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program Director
UC Davis Health System

Margaret Leung M.D.
UC Davis Assistant Clinical Professor in Internal Medicine, VCF
Site Director for Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship
Kaiser Permanente Medical Group

Stephanie Lee, M.D.
UC Davis Associate Physician, Hospice and Palliative Medicine
Site Director for Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship
UC Davis Health

Jessica Langston, M.D.
UC Davis Assistant Clinical Professor in Internal Medicine, VCF
Site Director for Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship
VA Northern CA Health Care System

Candidate Information

We offer opportunities for individuals who have completed ACGME residency training in Internal Medicine, Anesthesiology, Family Medicine, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Psychiatry and Neurology, Surgery, Pediatrics, Emergency Medicine, Radiology, and Obstetrics and Gynecology in the United States or Canada by the time they enter the fellowship-training program to apply to our program. Candidates must be board certified or eligible in their respective Boards and must possess a California medical license before the start date of the fellowship program. For more information, please visit your Board’s particular website or visit: American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (www.aahpm.org).

A J-1 visa is required for foreign nationals interested in the UC Davis Hospice and Palliative Care Program. We do not accept H1-B visas. Please see the UC Davis document " Requirements for International Medical Graduates at UC Davis Health. (PDF) for more information

We are always recruiting candidates and invite you to participate in the application process.

Applicants for 2025–2026 Academic Year

Our positions are filled through the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). Candidates may start their application process through ERAS in June. Applications will be released for review to us at the end of July. Interview dates have yet to be determined but will be Fridays in late August through October. All our interviews will be held virtually.

For full consideration, please submit your application and supporting materials by mid-August. We begin offering interviews on Fridays in late August-September.

Required application components to include in your ERAS application:

• Personal Statement
• Medical school transcript
• USMLE/COMPLEX transcript
• Medical school Dean's Letter (MSPE)
• Two (2) letters of recommendation from physicians who have served in a direct supervisory capacity
• One (1) letter of recommendation from a division head or department chair

Salary and Benefits

The University provides competitive salaries for fellows. In addition, the University provides health insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, professional liability insurance, and retirement benefits for the fellows (and their family members when appropriate). Fellows receive 28 vacation days a year.

Contact Information

If you have any programmatic or administrative questions, please contact:

Chari Elijah
Fellowship Coordinator
Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine
4150 V Street, Suite 3400
Sacramento, CA  95817
celijah@ucdavis.edu