Ohio’s Hospice welcomes Sarah Doell, DO, and Thomas Flynn, MD, the 2023-2024 fellows for the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship.

This is the third class of the fellowship, which began in 2021. The Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program is a collaboration between Kettering Health’s Soin Medical Center and Ohio’s Hospice.

The fellowship is a sub-specialty for physicians who are starting out in their medical careers or for those who are mid-career and want to move into hospice and palliative medicine.

The program provides fellows with dedicated time to focus on home care, inpatient care, hospital consultations, oncology training, and pediatric palliative care. In addition, the fellows conduct clinical research throughout the year. They spend one morning a week for the year at an ambulatory clinic and another day at a geriatric clinic.

During the second half of the fellowship, medical students and residents who rotate through Ohio’s Hospice are assigned to each of the fellows. This allows the fellows to further their own education as they teach the next generation of practitioners, promoting the ideology and approach to medicine that is unique to hospice and palliative care.

About Dr. Sarah Doell

Dr. Doell is from a small town located just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. Growing up she spent a lot of time with her family outdoors — camping, canoeing and kayaking down the river, and playing sports. She completed her undergraduate degree in biology at Southwest Baptist University.

During her undergraduate years, she spent summers volunteering in the rainforest near Iquitos, Peru, which helped inspire her to enter the medical field. She earned her medical degree from Campbell University in North Carolina. She returned to the Midwest to complete her internal medicine residency at Kettering Health in Dayton before applying for the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship.

“Throughout residency, I have been a small part of hospice and palliative medicine for some of my patients, but I found myself wishing I could play a more definitive role,” Dr. Doell said. “I have known for years that it is time with my patients that is most rewarding for me. I thrive on not only being able to improve their quality of life, but on knowing them personally and helping them thoroughly understand their treatment options.”

About Dr. Thomas Flynn

Dr. Flynn was born in Fort Myers, Florida, where he serendipitously did his residency in the same hospital in which he was born. He has lived and studied in Florida, Missouri, Tennessee, California, and Denmark.

He has always been drawn to the deep human need for connection and meaning in healthcare and relationship. Because of his interest in these areas, he earned an undergraduate degree in theology and completed a residency in family medicine.

“My career goal in hospice and palliative medical work is to consistently be the one walking into that patient room to push back against the haunting of insignificance and be the listening heart unknowingly yearned for,” Dr. Flynn said.

To learn more about the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship, click here.