Medical Students

The Hertzberg Palliative Care Institute has been actively involved in integrating palliative care into the 4 year medical school curriculum. Currently, topics that overlap many areas in medicine such as radiology, clinical laboratory medicine, palliative care, ethics and geriatrics are woven throughout the four years of medical school in a carefully designed sequence called Courses Without Walls. One of the Hertzberg Institute's objectives is to integrate palliative care principles into all 4 years of medical school. In their pre-clinical years, students learn the basics of patient-doctor communication, pain assessment from the patient's perspective, and caregiver support issues. In the clinical years, 3rd year medical students have the opportunity to join the palliative care clinical team for a 1-week required rotation. Fourth year medical students who would like additional exposure to palliative medicine can choose to do an elective rotation.

Goals for Clinical Rotations with the Palliative Care Team:

• Learn to manage common symptoms (physical and emotional) including pain, dyspnea, nausea, delirium, depression, constipation, anxiety and other symptoms seen commonly in association with serious illness
• Broaden understanding and appreciation of psychosocial issues and impact of illness on patient and family caregivers, e.g., loss, grief, bereavement
• Understand New York State Law, end-of-life decision-making, ethical issues including self determination, decisional capacity, health care proxies, Do-Not-Resuscitate orders, surrogate decision-making, withdrawal and withholding of life-sustaining treatment including decisions about nutrition and/or hydration, and risk/benefit ratio of medical treatments
• Learn communication skills through formal didactics and attending family meetings intended to discuss and decide about the goals of medical care, deliver "bad news" and support patients/families afterwards, discuss prognosis and plan of care for a range of diagnoses and patient/family preferences

Palliative Care Service Rotation for Third Year Medical Students

All Mount Sinai School of Medicine Third Year Medical Students spent 1-week rotating with the palliative care clinical service during their 12-week Internal Medicine-Geriatrics Clerkship. The curriculum for the 3rd year medical students includes didactics in pain management and communicating bad news, as well as a debriefing session. All students complete a 30-question pre-test to help guide their learning over the course of the week. The pre-test is reviewed with faculty at the end of the rotation.

Palliative Care Service Rotation for Fourth Year Medical Students

Mount Sinai School of Medicine Fourth Year Medical Students are invited to participate on our service through 2-4 week elective rotations on the Palliative Care Consultation Service. Please see the student handbook elective listing for further information. Elective rotations in palliative care are available to a limited number of external trainees.

Elective rotations can be scheduled by contacting:
Diane Maguire
E-mail: diane.maguire@mssm.edu or by calling
Tel: (212) 241-1446