Stronger Together: Integrated Geriatrics and Palliative Care Fellowships to Train Leaders in the Care of Older Adults with Serious Illness (GP729)

Abstract

• Discuss the benefit of training fellows in an integrated program with dual expertise in geriatrics and palliative medicine• Describe potential benefits of integrated and competency based-training programs• Summarize position funding strategies, educational methods and special professional development trainings used by integrated programs in geriatrics and palliative medicine. It is clear that there is a demographic imperative with the aging and chronically ill population growing at a steady speed. The number of people over age 85 will double to 10 million by the year 2030. This rapidly growing segment of the population is also the most likely to suffer from chronic, life-limiting illness. Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine are similar in many aspects such as an emphasis on inter-professional teams and promoting function, quality of life, and advance care planning. Since both fellowships are only a one-year clinical programs, trainees are ill-prepared to enter the academic world. In order to produce well-prepared leaders, we developed an integrated geriatric-palliative medicine fellowship (integrated fellows=IF) that will meet the core competencies requirements in 16 months and allow for 8 months of professional development focusing on leadership skills. To meet the needs of this growing population more educators and researchers in geriatric palliative care are needed to build models of care, train the clinicians of the future and be institutional change agents Based on the proposed IF competencies, we designed an integrated curriculum allowing fellows protected time to develop competencies in either research, education or administration, improving leadership training and addressing public health needs. The programs were modified by taking As of July 1, 2019, among all the programs, we have 32 graduated IF and received 16 new integrated fellows. To date, integrated fellows have presented 34 abstracts at national meetings. Further, IF have completed 36 professional development training and 100% IF have pursued/will pursue academic/leadership careers. In integrated fellowship, we have improved leadership training in Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine fellowships and increased outstanding academic leaders in both fields