What Does a Day in Our Fellowship Look Like

Overview: The Henry Ford Health is an integrated health system with a 1300-person medical group and multiple affiliated hospitals in and around Detroit, Michigan. The head and neck cancer program is a quaternary care referral center for other systems in the greater Detroit area, throughout the state of Michigan, as well as northern Ohio and Canada. We see approximately 300-500 new head and neck patients annually.

The Henry Ford Hospital Head and Neck Fellow will be an integral member of our multidisciplinary team of providers caring for head and neck cancer patients. The fellow will work predominantly with our 5 fellowship-trained head and neck surgeons but will have ample opportunity to train with our endocrine surgeon, skull base rhinology team and laryngology team.

Our robust multidisciplinary team includes radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, neuroradiologists, head and neck pathologists, oral surgeons, nurse navigators, head and neck-specific speech pathologists, a cancer dietician, clinical trials nurse, and a dedicated head and neck oncology psychologist (Henry Ford is one of two programs in the country that has this position). All patients are evaluated by the cancer dietician, speech and language
pathologist and oncology psychologist prior to treatment, weekly during treatment and post-treatment.

We supplement our weekly multidisciplinary head and neck tumor board with a head and neck research meeting to discuss new clinical trials, current projects, future studies. There is a monthly thyroid tumor board, twice-monthly melanoma tumor board and monthly skull base conference. A molecular tumor board meets monthly. These all contribute to the rich and collaborative learning environment offered at Henry Ford.

The fellowship is centered at Henry Ford Hospital but also occasionally covers the following locations:

• Henry Ford West Bloomfield: We cover the whole hospital on the inpatient side with the help of an awesome physician assistant and select faculty host outpatient clinics. Over the course of your fellowship, you possibly will spend some of your time here.
• Henry Ford Fairlane Medical Center: This is where a fair number of our faculty do clinic as well as outpatient surgeries in the ambulatory surgery center. As a fellow, you may have a chance to participate in cases with faculty here intermittently.
• Henry Ford Lakeside Medical Center: This is similar to Fairlane, but situated in the NE part of the Metro Detroit area. It is the closest outpatient clinic we have to Henry Ford Macomb Hospital, a 350+ bed community hospital with ICU/ER care; as a fellow you may occasionally get to do cases at Macomb.

Objectives: Graduate with expertise in the multidisciplinary management of the head and neck cancer patient. This includes both surgical, non-surgical and adjunct care. Specific objectives for surgical management include:

1. Ablative surgery for head and neck tumors – mucosal, cutaneous, salivary
2. Microvascular free tissue reconstruction and local regional flap reconstruction
3. Transoral robotic resection
4. Endocrine surgery – Thyroid/Parathyroid surgery
5. Transoral laser surgery in conjunction with laryngology team
6. Skull base surgery in conjunction with skull base rhinology team

Strengths:

1. High volume, multidisciplinary care of the head and neck cancer patient
2. Ample and varied opportunities for research and departmental support for AHNS meetings and educational
   courses.
3. Fellow is embedded in a seamless multidisciplinary head and neck cancer team.

Eligibility: Candidates must be board eligible/ board certified; Otolaryngology residency training preferred

Fellow’s Duties/Responsibilities: The Head and Neck Fellow will learn all of aspects of multidisciplinary clinical care of head and neck cancer patients. The fellow will be involved with inpatient rounding as junior faculty working directly with residents, advanced practice providers and other supporting staff (nursing, speech pathology, nutrition) on the care of head and neck inpatients. They will be involved in extirpative as well as microvascular cases as primary surgeon, teaching surgeon or an assistant as determined by faculty. As a teaching surgeon, he/she will be expected to take a resident through a case and delegate level-appropriate responsibility. The fellow will participate in faculty clinics as well as run his/her own clinic. The fellow will attend weekly care coordination meetings to discuss plans of upcoming surgeries with residents and staff. The fellow will also be part of the tumor board team and will be part of the discussion of multidisciplinary clinical management.