The Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has transformed medical education and created a national model for these specialties that is being emulated by institutions across the United States. It is the largest, most comprehensive geriatrics and palliative medicine training program in the country.
Led by a faculty of five, the robust fellowship program trains about 25 fellows each year across three Mount Sinai hospitals. Mount Sinai trains the largest number of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine fellows in the nation. The Brookdale Department’s innovative fellowship programs are training not only physicians, educators, and researchers, but also policymakers, advocates, and future leaders.
“We don’t just focus on clinical training, we teach our fellows leadership skills that will allow them to have a big impact on health care,” says Vanessa M. Rodriguez, MD, Geriatrics Fellowship Director. “That’s what makes our program so attractive. We empower our fellows and give them the tools to become excellent, well-rounded geriatricians or palliative care physicians. We help them advance to the next level, whether it’s becoming administrators at an earlier stage of their career, running health systems, innovating new models of care, promoting changes in health care policy, or otherwise establishing themselves as leaders in the field.”
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The Brookdale Department has a variety of curricula, many of which have recently been enhanced. Here are a few highlights:
Palliative Care Fellowship Training Aimed at Established Mid-Career Doctors
The time variable, competency based Mid-Career Palliative Medicine Fellowship is for physicians already board certified in their primary specialty who want additional training in palliative medicine to complement their skills. Mid-career fellows spend about 20 percent of their time in training while simultaneously carrying out their existing clinical and leadership roles and responsibilities. Since the fellowship’s launch in 2019, four doctors have completed the program. For 2025, a vascular surgeon and a trauma surgeon will enter the program.
One fellow per year is matched into the Hematology-Oncology/Palliative Medicine fellowship, which combines Palliative Medicine with Hematology-Oncology training over three-to-four years, depending on whether the fellow chooses to do a year of training focused on research.
“It’s very exciting to be training doctors in both modalities so they can go off into the world with these combined skills,” says Mollie A. Biewald, MD, Fellowship Program Director, Palliative Medicine. “The first fellow in that program is interested in research, so we're looking forward to seeing what she does with the joint training of hematology oncology and palliative care.”
LEAP Into Geriatrics and Palliative Care Leadership Fellowships
The LEAP Into Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Leadership Fellowships train doctors to assume leadership positions and promote changes in health care that better meet the needs of the aging and seriously ill populations. The two-year programs provide clinicians with the vision, skills, and expertise necessary to “Learn, Explore, Advocate, and Promote” (LEAP) into positions as future health system leaders, hospital executives, and change agents devoted to integrating geriatric and palliative medicine across all areas of practice.
The first two Siderow Palliative Medicine LEAP fellows, named for our philanthropic partners Saskia and Stephen Siderow, graduated in June 2024. Another LEAP graduate immediately took a position as a site director and the other is specializing in ethics at the program that she entered. Of the two current LEAP fellows, one is working on a palliative care education project, and the other is studying psychedelics for patients approaching the end of life.
In 2023, Mount Sinai, in collaboration with the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC), received a Brookdale Foundation grant to scale the LEAP fellowship program nationally and provide geriatrics and palliative medicine leadership training to fellows and early career professionals in hospitals across the United States.
Two-Year Geriatrics Fellowship Offers Opportunity for a Master’s Degree
For fellows interested in assuming an administrative role that advances the field of geriatrics, the two-year Geriatrics Fellowship goes beyond the traditional one year of geriatrics training. Fellows in the two-year track may also concurrently pursue a master’s degree, typically in health care administration or public health.
“This program is unique because a master’s program can be costly and, more typically, the degree must be pursued separately from fellowship training,” says Dr. Rodriguez. “This is a rare opportunity and very attractive for fellows who want to position themselves for leadership roles in the future.”
Medicine Geriatrics Track
The Medicine Geriatrics track is for medical school graduates applying to internal medicine residency programs who want to pursue geriatrics. Those accepted into the medicine-geriatrics track pursue a three-year residency that includes geriatrics rotations. Upon graduation, they enter the geriatrics fellowship without having to reapply.
Upon completion of the program, fellows may choose to pursue additional training. The first fellow to complete this track graduated in 2024 and is currently completing a hospice and palliative medicine fellowship. Current residents have expressed interest in future subspecialty training, such as cardiology, hematology-oncology, and palliative care.
“Many of the pioneers in geriatrics and palliative medicine were trained at Mount Sinai and they remain in the program. Doctors, including Helen Fernandez, Diane Meier, and department chair Sean Morrison, are known worldwide in the fields of geriatrics and palliative medicine,” says Dr. Rodriguez. “They set the standard and want to make sure our fellows can do more than become good, well-rounded geriatricians or palliative care physicians. We all want our fellows to set their sights higher, and so we give them the tools and the opportunity to develop into outstanding leaders.”
Click here to learn more about all the fellowship programs the Department offers.
Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Fellowships
Geriatrics (one year)
Palliative Medicine (one year)
Integrated Geriatrics-Palliative Medicine (two years)
Palliative Care Fellowship Training Aimed at Established Mid-Career Doctors
LEAP into Geriatrics Leadership Fellowship (two years)
LEAP into Palliative Medicine Leadership Fellowship (two years)
Medicine-Geriatrics track (three years internal medicine residency plus one year geriatrics fellowship)
Click here to learn more.