Hybrid Theory: Creation of a Faculty Position That Allows Half-Time Hospice Employment Alongside Academic Palliative Care

BACKGROUND: The specialty of hospice and palliative medicine struggles to merge the fast-paced technological consultative work of acute hospital palliative care with slower paced and home-based hospice. Each has equal if different merits. Here, we describe creation of a position that allowed half-time hospice employment, alongside academic hospital-based palliative care. METHODS: Johns Hopkins Medicine and Gilchrist, Inc., a large nonprofit hospice, partnered to form a joint position with time spent equally between the two locations. RESULTS: Created as a university position with leasing to the hospice, specific attention has been paid to mentoring at both sites to allow professional advancement. Both organizations have benefited in terms of recruitment, and more physicians have chosen this dual pathway suggesting that it is working well. DISCUSSION: Hybrid positions are possible and may be desired by those who wish to practice both palliative medicine and hospice. Creation of one successful position helped recruit a second and a third candidate a year later. The original recipient has been promoted within Gilchrist to direct the inpatient unit. Such positions require careful mentoring and coordination to allow success at both sites and this can be done with foresight

NCCN Guidelines® Insights: Palliative Care, Version 2.2021.

Palliative care has evolved to be an integral part of comprehensive cancer care with the goal of early intervention to improve quality of life and patient outcomes. The NCCN Guidelines for Palliative Care provide recommendations to help the primary oncology team promote the best quality of life possible throughout the illness trajectory for each patient with cancer. The NCCN Palliative Care Panel meets annually to evaluate and update recommendations based on panel members' clinical expertise and emerging scientific data. These NCCN Guidelines Insights summarize the panel's recent discussions and highlights updates on the importance of fostering adaptive coping strategies for patients and families, and on the role of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions to optimize symptom management