Why Choose Stony Brook for your Residency or Fellowship?
For Prospective Residents and Fellows
Welcome and thank you for your interest in the Stony Brook Geriatric Medicine fellowship training program. We provide a comprehensive post-graduate training program designed to produce outstanding clinical and academic Geriatricians and Geriatric Hospitalists. We offer two ACGME accredited Geriatric Fellowship tracks: a one- year Geriatric fellowship with an emphasis on clinical excellence in a variety of settings from the outpatient to inpatient and nursing home, home and assisted living settings and an innovative two-year Combined Geriatric Medicine Fellowship- Hospitalist Track. Both tracks emphasize training to produce physician leaders who will provide respectful, compassionate patient centered, and competent expert care to older adults, advance best practices across the full continuum of care and teach geriatric principles to colleagues and trainees in both community and academic settings.
Fellowship in Geriatrics
The Geriatric Medicine Fellowship Program at SUNY Stony Brook prepares internists and family physicians to become highly skilled clinicians and educators in the field of Geriatrics and to acquire the requisite teaching and research skills to pursue a career in academic medicine. Our fellows care for elderly patients with a wide variety of medical problems – from the essentially healthy elder who has limited disease to the frail nursing home resident with multiple comorbidities. To date, we have graduated over 70 fellows who are practicing geriatrics in various settings, teaching trainees, and heading clinical and educational programs. We offer a comprehensive curriculum that covers the full continuum of geriatric care - from the acute inpatient hospital to the outpatient office, to the home or assisted living facility to the teaching nursing home.
The Geriatric Fellowship program is accredited for one year of clinical training. We offer an “Alternative Pathway” which is a Combined Geriatric Medicine-Hospitalist Fellowship two-year track in which physicians spend half of their time as geriatric fellows and half as hospitalists for two years. This track emphasizes the development of leadership skills through formal training and experiential learning.
Stony Brook University Geriatric Fellowship was the first program to create and obtain ACGME approval of this innovative program in Geriatric Hospitalist Medicine. Since 2015, we have had 6 fellows successfully participate in the program. This program focuses on training hospitalists to teach, lead team-based care, and communicate effectively with patients, colleagues and staff. It fosters scholarly activity and the development of administrative skills so important for success in academic medicine. The fellow will develop leadership and inter-professional skills to produce leaders in Geriatric and Hospitalist Medicine and promote academic careers. The outcome is the training of a quality Geriatric hospitalist who can teach trainees geriatric medicine, conduct quality improvement studies and attain the leadership skills to enhance geriatric inpatient care. Those completing this track have the necessary skills to become leaders in the field of Geriatric Hospitalist medicine and improve the care of the older Hospitalized patient.
The program entails training physicians as Geriatric Medicine fellows for half of the academic year while working the other half as a Hospitalist physician with completion of the Geriatric fellowship over a 2 year period.
We offer five (5) fellowship positions each year (one through the alternative pathway for two candidates). Recruitment and interviews begin in early September. Applicants apply through ERAS. The Stony Brook Geriatric Medicine Fellowship program participates in the National Residency Matching Program (NRMP).
Overview and Highlights
- One year Geriatric Medicine Fellowship accredited by ACGME through 2022; upon completion, fellows are eligible to sit for CAQ in Geriatric Medicine
- Two year Combined Geriatric Medicine-Hospitalist Fellowship in which physicians spend half of their time as geriatric fellows and half as hospitalists for two years. This track emphasizes the development of leadership skills through formal training and experiential learning to become leaders in the field of Geriatric Hospitalist medicine and improve the care of the Older Hospitalized patient.
- Training in all aspects of Geriatric Medicine – consultative, acute inpatient, sub-acute rehabilitation, home care, assisted living, palliative care/hospice, outpatient
- Didactic training in statistical analysis and epidemiology
- Excellent continuity of care experience in the outpatient clinic, which offers a multidisciplinary “Enhanced Geriatric Care” program for frail elders at high risk for hospitalization and institutionalization, in the nursing home (through weekly visits), and in the home care program
- Leadership training – formal didactics plus experiential learning, participation in Committees, Quality Improvement
- Health Literacy training
- Opportunities to enhance communication skills through Observed Structured Clinical Exams in Stony Brook’s Clinical Simulation Center
- Teaching opportunities as inpatient “Junior Attending” physician at the Northport VAMC
- Affiliation with three teaching nursing homes with dedicated full-time, board certified faculty
- End of life palliative medicine training at University Hospital and with a highly respected community-based hospice program
- One-on-one mentoring from experienced faculty
- Geriatric board exam preparation
Leadership Curriculum: The leadership curriculum focuses on patient safety, quality improvement, inter-professional collaboration, and health systems. Teaching topics for the fellowship included transitional care, polypharmacy/medication reconciliation, prevention of iatrogenic illness, delirium recognition and proper management, falls prevention and management.
The rotation schedule and structure of the Combined Geriatric medicine fellowship-hospitalist program is similar to that of the traditional Geriatric Medicine fellowship but there is additional emphasis on leadership in nursing home and hospital administration through direct observation and mentoring. In addition, the Program Director and the fellow plan an individualized training program to best meet the goals of the individual Hospitalist/Fellow.
"The fellowship was extremely helpful in getting any job I wanted. The uniqueness of the combined fellowship made me stand out among other applicants. I was usually the top candidate for the places I applied to and many attributed it to the fellowship. In fact, it helped me became a medical director now." (Dr Don Nguyen)
"I definitely think the combined geriatric-hospitalist program helped me tailor my care for the geriatric population. By recognizing the significance of delirium, pressure injuries, prolonged hospital stay, immobility, goals of care, etc you minimize common geriatric complications. I’ve implemented these topics in my teaching with residents and geriatric fellows and found this to have a positive impact on patient care, multidisciplinary meetings and education. I think this track provides an additional tool set to improve care for the elderly." (Dr Eera Jain)
"For me, I thought that I knew how to care for our older adult population, but the fellowship made me so much more confident. The combination of fellowship with Hospitalist let us take these skills and apply them directly to inpatient care wth an increasingly aging population. Additionally, the combined program allowed for good work-life balance."
(Dr. Lindsey Schachter)
