Program Overview
The Division of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Florida offers a 3 year program in fellowship training for combined board eligibility in each discipline. Our program is fully accredited by the ACGME and ABIM. To be eligible for consideration, fellows must have completed training in Internal Medicine at an ACGME accredited institution and be board eligible at the time of entering the fellowship program. Qualified fellow applicants with a serious commitment to a career in academic medicine will receive preference in the selection process.
We offer three tracks: Basic Scientist, Clinical Investigator, and Clinical Hematology/Oncologist, for individuals with different career goals. All fellows will spend their first year in predominantly clinical rotations including exposure to inpatient oncology at both hospitals, bone marrow transplantation and hematology consultation. All fellows will also have ongoing outpatient experience at both hospitals, including a personal and diverse panel of patients which will be followed throughout the duration of training. Training is highly individualized to offer the most comprehensive and appropriate experience for each trainee with flexibility in rotation and clinic assignments.
The educational activities within the division include weekly tumor conferences in the management of sarcomas, genitourinary cancers, lymphomas and leukemias, breast cancer, thoracic malignancies, head and neck cancer, and gastrointestinal cancers. In addition, there are weekly didactic conferences during which faculty, fellows or outside guest lecturers provide the division with information regarding the management and biology of malignancies. To aid the education of fellows in the biology of cancer, there is a weekly stem cell and cancer biology symposium and monthly Cancer Center Grand Rounds. For hematology, there is a weekly morning case-based informal conference as well as a more formal monthly presentation dealing with new information or problems in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with blood disorders. Following the fellow clinics, there is a weekly post clinic conference where select patients are discussed for the purpose of education.
For those fellows interested in a career based in translational research, opportunities are available as part of an NIH funded training grant and in association with the UF Cancer Center. Opportunities for basic research include the areas of stem cell and cancer biology, drug development and the mechanisms of action of antineoplastic agents, signal transduction and gene therapy. In the areas of clinical research, fellows may work with any number of mentors in the hematologic malignancies program, the bone marrow transplant program, hematology, or the solid tumor program. Funds to support these efforts are obtained from the appropriate sources by the fellow in collaboration with their respective mentors. More formal training within the program on clinical trial methodology and biostatistics, as well as support from the UF Cancer Center Clinical Trials Office, help to provide a robust exposure to clinical research and the future of Hematology & Oncology.