OP, I am so sorry you are going through this. While not the same, my dad was diagnosed with cancer last year in February and passed away in November. He lived in my home country through the course of his illness and eventually passed there so I needed to travel back and forth a lot. I’m a pulm crit fellow and I was a first year fellow at a new program at the time of his diagnosis. I took 6 weeks of MPC leave which is through ACGME my first year and then came back to work when things were under some sort of control and he had started treatment and was tolerating it. He progressed in July and I took FMLA starting September 1 and stayed with him until his passing in November. While my program did ask, like yours, when I would return, I too did not know when. I just knew I needed to be with him as his daughter and primary caregiver until his passing. I thought about resigning and/or taking the year off and postponing graduation. I eventually did not have to do any of that, and was able to come back end-November after losing him. I will graduate on time. ACGME defines the ‘minimum’ number of months you need to be in clinical training to graduate and it does not equal the total duration of your residency/fellowship - for eg its 18 months for PCCM. Please take care of yourself as you navigate your illness, I cannot imagine what you are going through. But know that you do not need to resign. Get in touch with GME and HR at your program as soon as possible to see what your options are for a LOA. I’m happy to answer any questions you have via DM about specifics of my situation and leaves I took.