The palliative care education leadership is grateful to share the publication of our recent article in Academic Medicine describing the early experiences of the University of Colorado’s Community Hospice and Palliative Medicine (CHPM) Fellowship. CHPM is a parttime, ACGMEapproved, online training pathway designed for midcareer physicians who want to build subspecialty expertise and work towards board eligibility without relocating or stepping away from their clinical work.
This program was developed in direct response to the critical national shortage of palliative care clinicians, a workforce gap that continues to widen as patient needs outpace the number of trained specialists. Our work began with the interdisciplinary Master of Science in Palliative Care (MSPC), designed to prepare clinicians from multiple professions to deliver highquality palliative care. While the MSPC provided rigorous, comprehensive training, many physicians reported that, even with the degree, they struggled to secure jobs without formal board certification. Their experience revealed an urgent need for an accredited pathway that would both strengthen the workforce and remove barriers to physician employment. The CHPM fellowship was created to meet that need: to expand access to skilled palliative care and ensure that qualified clinicians can fully enter and support the field.
When we launched the CHPM fellowship, which requires completion of our MSPC, we knew we were asking physicians to join us in trying something new, an online, communitybased model in a field traditionally shaped by inperson, fulltime training. This evaluation of the program, based on indepth interviews with our first two cohorts of graduates, was an opportunity to learn from their lived experience.
For this evaluation, the CHPM faculty piloted a new method for program evaluation that used semi-structured interviews with a rapid qualitative evaluation that was mapped on the Kirkpatrick Model. This allowed us to evaluate Level 3 (Change in Behaviors) and Level 4 (Impacts on patients and healthcare systems) impacts. For example, many fellows reported ways in which they had assumed leadership and educational roles in their healthcare systems directly related to the HPM Fellowship. Others may consider aspects of this evaluation method in their settings.
Graduates described meaningful personal and professional growth: becoming more confident and competent in core palliative care skills, developing as future palliative care leaders in their local systems, and finding a sense of community despite the distance. They also surfaced important areas for us to strengthen, including interdisciplinary teaching, leadership content, and administrative support. Their feedback will shape the next iteration of this stillyoung program.
We don’t see this fellowship as a finished product, but rather as a promising approach to a national workforce challenge. By creating a way for midcareer physicians to pursue boardeligible training while remaining in their home communities, the CHPM Fellowship offers one path toward expanding palliative care capacity where it is most needed.
We’re humbled by the trust our graduates and their clinical sites placed in this model and energized by the impact they’re already making in their local settings. This program was truly a collaboration, and we are thankful to the supportive leaders at the University of Colorado in general internal medicine, family medicine, graduate medical education, Schools of Pharmacy, Nursing and Medicine as well as American Board of Internal Medicine, Family Medicine and ACGME who supported us in developing this program.
Want to know more about our Palliative Care Education programs? Click below:
Interprofessional Palliative Care Certificate
Community Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship