The one-year Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Rochester, Minnesota is an interprofessional postgraduate program for advanced practice providers.

Unique fellowship opportunities at Mayo Clinic include:

• A 12-month program consisting of in-person didactics, simulation, and unique elective rotations
• Deepen understanding of the complex interplay between serious illness and palliative care needs unique to each patient
• Gain knowledge in the assessment and management of complex pain and non-pain symptom management at a sub-specialty level, perform spiritual, psychosocial, and cultural assessments
• Experiences in complex pain management, non-pain symptom management, pharmacology, and complex communication skills
• Enhance research training through completion of a quality improvement project, training in basic research skills, involvement in scholarly review activities, and clinical education
• Outstanding trip support for participation and attendance
• Curriculum opportunities that promote resiliency and self-care in order to foster passion for your work throughout your career

Program highlights

The NP/PA Hospice and Palliative Care Fellowship offers all of the essential clinical, didactic, and research components of subspecialty-level hospice and palliative care. Fellows who complete the clinical year will be able to evaluate and manage patients across the continuum of palliative care from diagnosis through end of life. This includes primary inpatient, outpatient, and consultative palliative care as well as home and facility based hospice.

In the video below, learn more about our program, its values, and past fellows who share how fellowship at Mayo Clinic prepared them for a career in hospice and palliative care.

Interprofessional postgraduate program

As an interprofessional postgraduate program, advanced practice fellows will complete training alongside physician co-fellows in the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship within Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education. This integrated fellowship trains three physicians and two advanced practice clinicians as a single fellowship class.

Through integration of multiple clinician disciplines within a single fellowship class, our fellows gain a deeper understanding of the roles within the interprofessional team, knowledge that is integral to the care of complex patients within the hospice and palliative care population.

Completion and certification 

Upon program completion, you will receive a certificate from Mayo Clinic School of Health Sciences documenting successful completion of the 12-month postgraduate Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship. This certificate verifies that you have completed all the components outlined in the curriculum and have achieved program competencies.

After successful program completion, nurse practitioners will have the skills, knowledge, and clinical hours necessary to successfully pass the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) Advanced Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse exam (Advanced Practice Registered Nurses only). Physician assistants will be able to apply the clinical hours and CME credits obtained during fellowship toward the Certificate of Added Qualifications in Palliative Medicine and Hospice Care (PMHC) application prerequisites.

Training and experience provided during your fellowship will not only provide you a competitive position when seeking a future career in hospice and palliative care, but will also provide an enhanced educational foundation for a career within other complex medical specialties such as cardiology, neurology, oncology, and many others.

Accreditation information 

See accreditation information for Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.