Physician Education

“Ask any physician of twenty years’ standing how [the physician] has become proficient in [the] art, by constant contact with disease;…the medicine learned in the schools is totally different from the medicine learned at the bedside.”

Dr. William Osler, MD (1849-1919)
reformer of American medical education

Hospice care has moved from an alternative that developed outside of standard medicine to being a scientifically proven and essential element of good medical care. Most hospice care is provided in a patient’s home and is fundamentally different than care provided in hospitals or outpatient offices. It follows that physicians should experience in-home hospice care during their medical training. 

The Elizabeth Hospice is proud to be a teaching affiliate of the UCSD School of Medicine, UCSD Health, Scripps Health, and numerous other medical schools and residency training programs in the US and globally. 

Medical Education occurs in 3 steps:

1. Medical School. Four years of education following four years of undergraduate education. The first two years are spent mainly in the classroom learning the science of medicine. The last two years are spent in clinical clerkships where they learn to apply science to the art of direct patient care.
2. Residency Training. 3-5 years of mentored practice in a specialty.
3. Fellowship Training. 1-3 years of mentored practice in a subspecialty.

UCSD Medical School 401

The UCSD School of Medicine requires all medical students in their fourth year to spend clinical time with a hospice program. Currently, about half of the students do their clerkship with The Elizabeth Hospice.

Residency Programs

Scripps Mercy Hospital Internal Medicine requires its residents to spend clinical time with The Elizabeth Hospice.

The Family Medicine Residency Program of the Southwest Healthcare Medical Education Consortium in Temecula and Murrieta offer their physicians an opportunity to experience outpatient palliative care firsthand through a clinical training experience with The Elizabeth Hospice.

We welcome individual residents from various training programs who request to spend clinical time with our physicians and hospice teams.

Fellowship Program

The Elizabeth Hospice participates in the joint UCSD/Scripps Fellowship Program in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. It is one of the largest in the country, with eight physician fellows participating in  the one-year training program that starts on July 1 each year. They divide their training between subspecialty consultation services in the hospitals of UCSD and Scripps, the ambulatory outpatient clinics at UCSD and Scripps, and hospice care. Many of these physicians go on to practice in the region.

Subspecialty Fellows in 2023-2024

Guiyu Lutetia Li, MD
Eric Leslie, MD
Matthew Mason, MD
Sean Posada, MD
Theodore Roper, MD
Iris Vuong, MD
Patricia Weisner, MD, PhD