Hospice & Palliative Fellowship Program
Hunterdon Palliative Care strives to provide the highest quality, patient and family-centered palliative care for our patients through excellent clinical consultation, comprehensive educational programs, collaborative creation of relevant institutional policy and ongoing performance improvement.
Hunterdon Palliative Care works towards the following goals:
- Respect patient autonomy, values, and decisions
- Continually clarifying goals of care
- Minimize symptom distress
- Optimize appropriate supportive interventions and consultations
- Reduce unnecessary and/or unwanted interventions
- Support families by coordinating services
- Provide bereavement services as appropriate for families and staff
- Facilitate the transition to alternative care settings such as hospice when appropriate
- Collaborate with other members of the healthcare team in a multidisciplinary approach to excellent patient care.
- Educate the next generation of palliative specialists and also physicians/nurses who provide primary palliative care.
Dear Potential Applicant,
I am very excited to invite you to apply for the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship at Hunterdon Medical Center. Although we are a young fellowship program, Hunterdon Medical Center has a long history of providing excellent clinical care for patients in the context of their family and community as well as a long history of providing excellent education to a multidisciplinary group of medical professionals, especially physicians.
Our relatively small but fiercely independent hospital was started almost 70 years ago by the citizens of this county and from the beginning, provided postgraduate education in primary care. Over 40 years ago, community members again came together to form a non-profit hospice which is known for its excellent end-of-life care. And in the mid-2000s, many of those active in this hospice were motivated to begin a palliative care program so the advantages of symptom management and team support for patients and their families would be available to any person with a serious illness at any time in the course of that illness.
What started in 2007 as a rudimentary 1 physician-1 chaplain inpatient consult team has grown dramatically to include multiple palliative board-certified physicians, highly skilled advanced practice nurses, a chaplain, hospice liaison, and a full time dedicated social worker providing both inpatient and outpatient interdisciplinary care.
Three times certified for excellence by the Joint Commission, we have long been involved in teaching family medicine residents, medical students, and nurses in how to provide primary palliative care and when to call upon their specialized palliative colleagues for assistance.
In addition to receiving an excellent education in hospice and palliative care here, you will enjoy living in an area that is one of the “best-kept secrets” in New Jersey if not the entire Northeast U.S. The surrounding countryside is beautiful in all four seasons and affords many opportunities for relaxing outdoor activities. We have highly livable towns, attractive school systems, and with proximity to both Philadelphia and New York, ample cultural and job opportunities. We invite you to explore our program and come join us in the next great step of your career!
Warmly,
Susan M. Bauman, MD, FAAFP, FAAHPM