• Monthly live Zoom-based Training Sessions
  
  
• Online learning consisting of monthly lectures presented by core faculty, visionary teachers, changemakers, and leading physicians supported by accompanying literature and research studies, reflective writing, and case studies
  
  
• Mentorship by core faculty through monthly opportunities for Zoom-based one-on-one meetings scheduled during office hours
  
  
• Daily contemplative practice supported by online teachings from Koshin Sensei, Chodo Sensei, and Tieraona Low Dog, MD
  
  
• Assignments for developing core competencies and applying contemplative practices in your care setting 
  
  
• Two, four-day residential retreats that emphasize contemplative practice, and guided group learning and discussion
  
  
• Completion of a professional development capstone project that allows participants to take their training into their clinical environment or community and examine how that impacts their practice and their life
  
  
• Optional Silent Retreat

The curriculum centers the integration of contemplative practice into daily life as an ongoing foundation for compassionate care, an integrated personal and professional life, resilience, and continual transformation. It is rooted in the Zen Center’s tradition of socially engaged Buddhism with a 1500-year experience-based pedagogical model that is accessible to anyone of any or no tradition.

The core curriculum consists of:

• Training in meditation and contemplative practices
  
  
• Examining the basis and alleviation of suffering through the basic tenets of Buddhist thought—The Four Noble Truths and The Eightfold Path
  
  
• Training in Contemplative Orientation to Resilience (COR), our evidence-based healthcare intervention emphasizing community, agency, and meaning as sources of strength for clinicians, patients, and co-workers
  
  
• Addressing the roots of social isolation, burnout, loss of meaning, and secondary traumatic stress through the lens of medical and Zen ethics
  
  
• Developing and applying contemplative communication and interpersonal skills for partnership-centered care and leading change
  
  
• Examining core competencies of the practitioner’s profession through the lens of contemplative medicine
  
  
• Integrating contemplative care and values into personal and professional roles
  
  
• Completing a quality improvement capstone project guided by the principles of contemplative medicine that enhances the fellow’s professional practice
  
  Download an overview of the monthly curriculum here.

The 2023-2024 cohort begins July 29, 2023 and concludes June 30, 2024. Applications are now being accepted on a rolling basis.

The First Residential Retreat is scheduled for October 25 – 29, 2023. Location will be announced shortly.

The Closing Residential Retreat is scheduled for June 26 – June 30, 2024. Location will be announced shortly.

Monthly zoom-based learning occurs on the following Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET:

• 2023: July 29, August 19, September 23, October (First Residential Retreat), November 18, December 16
  
• 2024: January 27, February 24, March 16, April 13, May 18, June (Closing Retreat)

Visiting Faculty Sessions occur on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, 7:30–8:45 p.m. ET via Zoom with exceptions for holidays.

Fellows are strongly encouraged to attend an optional silent retreat (Sesshin). A cornerstone of Zen practice, the Japanese word sesshin refers to an intensive period of meditation and literally translates to “touching the heart-mind.” This retreat is scheduled for January 10-14, 2024.

Fellows attend two four-day residential retreats during the Fellowship.

The first retreat is typically in October, emphasizing community building, contemplative practice, and guided group learning and discussion.

The fellowship culminates with a closing retreat, generally held in June, that focuses on integration of the twelve-month training, celebrating capstone projects, and exploring how the cohort will continue to collaborate and support one another post-fellowship.

Retreat locations will be announced shortly, and onsite participation is required.

Fellows are also encouraged to attend an optional silent retreat (Sesshin). A cornerstone of Zen practice, the Japanese word sesshin refers to an intensive period of meditation and literally translates to “touching the heart-mind.” This retreat is held each January.

Please note that required and optional retreats and travel costs are not included in the Fellowship tuition.

Dates can be found in the Program Schedule section.

Tuition for the twelve-month program is $10,500 (payable by check or credit card). This does not include the cost of the two required in-person retreats. 

The first non-refundable payment of $5,250 is due 2 weeks after fellows are accepted to the program. The non-refundable balance payment of $5,250 is due one month before the program begins.

Alternate payment plans are available for those in need of them.

SCHOLARSHIPS

We are pleased to offer a limited number of partial tuition scholarships based on financial need with a focus on supporting candidates who are:

• Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)
  
• Primarily working within underserved communities 

Scholarship funds are limited and are first come, first awarded. International candidates are encouraged to apply. We encourage applicants to seek tuition assistance from their place of practice before applying for our limited scholarship funds.

Scholarship applications are reviewed on a rolling basis in conjunction with the full application for the Contemplative Medicine Fellowship. 

Please note that we often have more scholarship requests than resources available in a given year, and we make every effort to accommodate requests accordingly.  

For further information, please contact us at info@zencare.org.

At the center of the Fellowship methodology is a relationship-centered, cohort-based model that builds genuine, enduring fellowship based upon the values of intimacy, curiosity, and courage. Each fellow’s commitment to their own and their peer’s journey simultaneously challenges and supports deep transformation.

Unlike traditional fellowships, the fellowship site is the practitioner’s own place of practice—in the midst of their full lives—and the fellowship is designed to provide ongoing training and support to incorporate contemplative practice into the whole of one’s daily life.

The fellowship has adopted a low-residency model that immerses participants in contemplative practice and engaged, experiential learning while supporting existing professional responsibilities.

Designed for practitioners in multiple professions, roles, and care models, the fellowship also promotes interprofessional collaborative practice leading to improved cooperation, communication, and integration among healthcare in teams.

Fellows learn how to transform the way they care for others, their loved ones, and themselves by drawing on the tradition of Zen—the experience of disciplined practice in a shared community.

While medical education and practice has most recently been focused on the understanding of pathophysiology and treatment of disease, it is also a tradition that has long valued caregiving as a priority of clinical intervention (Kleinman 2020). Medicine has also traditionally been considered a healing profession, “but it has neither an operational definition of healing nor explanation of its mechanisms beyond the physiological processes related to curing.” (Egnew 2005)

Reclaiming both compassionate care and the alleviation of suffering as priorities in medicine is the Zen Center’s mission and is the goal of the Fellowship. The twelve-month training seeks to bring together the two streams of the participant’s previous medical training and their contemplative practice, finding their shared roots and creating a contemplative medicine. This rigorous training engenders radical compassion in both the practitioner and the patient, acting as the healing agent of suffering and empowering practitioners to lead change in the culture of care.

To read more about the defining principles guiding the fellowship, click here.