Geriatrics Fellowship Program

Overview

We are proud to have one of the most highly regarded fellowship programs in geriatric medicine in the country at Mount Sinai, training an average of six physicians each year in a two-year program. The goal of the fellowship is to train future academic leaders with excellent foundations in patient care and strong research backgrounds. The evolution of our program reflects the changing face of geriatric medicine and the new opportunities available in geriatrics. Our department is at the national forefront of advancing Geriatric education and of "de-stigmatizing" both the profession and the concept of Geriatric medicine. To attain our goals, we follow a quality-improvement model.

The fellowship format allows the fellow to choose one of the following tracks to specialize in during his/her second year:

• Clinician-Educator
• Palliative Care
• Clinical Research
• Basic Science
• Health Policy And Administration
• Home Care
• Long Term Care

We believe that offering specialized fellowship tracks will allow fellows to better tailor their training programs to career goals in a rapidly changing health care environment.

The fellowship received a five-year re-accreditation from the American Board of Internal Medicine Residency Review Committee in 2004. U.S. News and World Report consistently rates the program as one of the top 3 in the country.

Helen M. Fernandez, M.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor, directs our fellowship program. In 2005, she became the program director for a consortium grant to train non-geriatricians in geriatrics, Strengthening Faculty Expertise in Geriatrics at US Academic Health Center, which is funded by Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. As part of this grant, she is one of the course co-directors of the FD-AGE Master Clinician-Educator Program in Geriatrics and the Mini-fellowship in Geriatrics for Non-Geriatricians. In 2006, she received a grant from the Aetna Foundation for a project on the impact of culture on palliative care education. In 2007, she was awarded the Minority Faculty Career Development from the Northeast Consortium for Minority Faculty Development, re-awarded a Geriatric Academic Career Award and became the co-program director of the Consortium for Geriatric Education Centers of New York. Dr. Fernandez has also presented updates in Geriatric Medicine annually at several national and regional venues since 2002 such as the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and American Geriatrics Society (AGS). She has also presented on topics including geriatric models of care and medication management at several national and international meetings including: the 2005 World Gerontology Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the ACP International Meeting in Mexico 2006, and the International Association for Medical Education annual conference in Genoa, Italy (2006).

The following innovative programs have been added to the fellowship in recent years:

1. Clinical teaching rotations
   • Inpatient (primary care and consultative services)
   • Ambulatory
   • Long term care
   • Home care
   • Palliative medicine consultation
   • Sub-acute rehabilition
   • Geropsychiatry
2. Second-year fellowship tracks, with opportunities to compete for an additional third year of training.
3. New opportunities for academic longitudinal care experiences at multiple sites, including the Bronx VA, Visiting Doctors/Home Care Program, Senior Health Partners, and the Jewish Home and Hospital.
4. Involvement in an interdisciplinary teaching curriculum with nurses and social workers
5. A formal career mentoring program to enhance successful academic careers
6. Dedicated academic half-days and annual conferences and training programs for faculty development to enhance effective clinical teaching and teamwork (both professionally and clinically):
   • Fellows-as-Teachers Program
   • Annual Geriatrics and Palliative Care CME Board Review Course
   • Annual EPEC (Education in Palliative and End-of-Life Care) Training
   • Master Clinician-Educator Program in Geriatrics (MCEP-G)

For more information about our fellowship program, please call (212) 241-8110.