title: Flying beyond Gray's Anatomy: A psychologist's experience in palliative care and psycho-oncology.
abstract: A clinical fellowship provides opportunities for health professionals to learn specialist skills from experienced mentors in "real-world" environments. In 2010-2011, I had the opportunity to complete a palliative care and psycho-oncology clinical fellowship in a public hospital. I found ways to integrate academic training into my practice and become a more independent psychologist. In this essay, I aim to share my experience with others and highlight key learnings and challenges I encountered. In providing psychosocial care, I learned to adapt my psychological practice to a general hospital setting, learning about the medical concerns, and life stories of my patients. I faced challenges navigating referral processes and had opportunities to strengthen my psychotherapy training. In the fellowship, I engaged in educational activities from the more familiar psychological skills to observing surgical teams at work. I also developed confidence facilitating groups and an interest in group psychological support for young adult offspring of people with cancer. I was able to engage participants with haematological cancer in qualitative research about their experiences of corticosteroid treatment. In this process, I came to understand the complexity of chemotherapy regimens. Overseeing my development were multiple supervisors, offering unique insights that I could take in and integrate with my personal practice and worldview. Throughout this process I became increasingly tuned into my own process, the impact of the work, and developed self-care routines to help disconnect from my day. I also reflected on my experiences of loss and grief and developed a deeper understanding of myself as a person. I use the metaphor of a parachuting journey to illustrate various aspects of my learning.
authors.affiliation: Psychosocial Cancer Care,St. Vincent's Hospital,Melbourne,Australia.
authors.forename: Casey L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: O'Brien
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D005257:Fellowships and Scholarships; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000523:psychology*; D011584:Psychology / Q000193:education*
keywords: Education; Fellowship; Palliative care; Psychology; Psychosocial