Completion of this fully accredited three year combined subspecialty program leads to board eligibility in both Medical Oncology and Hematology. The division is comprised of approximately 50 full-time faculty members, all of whom are involved in teaching and mentoring fellows. Five new fellows are matriculated each year.
Clinical training is based at the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, an 850 bed academic hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. This institution serves as a community hospital for a large, diverse patient population, and also functions as a tertiary care referral center.
The first year of fellowship training is entirely clinical; each first year fellow rotates monthly through five clinical services: Benign Hematology, Bone Marrow Transplant, Leukemia, Lymphoma/Myeloma and Solid Tumor. There is an emphasis on outpatient as well as inpatient care; some rotations take place entirely in the ambulatory setting.
The primary activity during the second year of fellowship training is research – basic, translational, and/or clinical. Each fellow follows his or her interests and undertakes a research project under the mentorship and guidance of the division’s physician-scientists. Emphasis is placed on research design, methodology, and interpretation of data. Areas of active basic research by our faculty include angiogenesis, hematopoiesis, stem cell biology, immunology, vascular biology, viral oncogenesis, tumor biology, cellular adhesion mechanisms, gene regulation, molecular pathogenesis, AIDS virology and cell signaling. Clinical research is facilitated via participation in a large multi-institutional cooperative group (Cancer and Leukemia Group B), and through institutional programs in leukemia, bone marrow/stem cell transplant, gene therapy, immunotherapy and novel chemotherapy. Our division has great strength in basic and translational science research. Thus, even fellows primarily interested in clinical research typically incorporate laboratory-based work into their research projects. Fellows during the second year may also begin a two-year master's degree program in Clinical Investigation, or a one-year certificate program in Clinical Investigation.
The third year of fellowship training is comprised primarily of elective time, allowing each trainee to focus on specific areas of interest while consolidating their clinical and research knowledge and experience. Six of the twelve months must be spent on clinical rotations; up to six months may be devoted to research.
Throughout the three years of fellowship training, regardless of rotation or activity, each fellow cares for their own panel of hematology-oncology patients one half-day weekly in the Fellows’ Continuity Clinic, under the guidance and supervision of attending faculty.
A full schedule of weekly conferences, didactic lectures, tumor boards and journal clubs rounds out the fellows’ activities. Attendance at some of these conferences is mandatory, and fellows are regularly called upon to present cases, present research findings or otherwise participate in discussions.
Graduates of the division’s Fellowship Training Program are well prepared for research and/or clinical careers. Past graduates have gone on to become leaders in basic research, clinical research, and academia.
