left to right: Shakun Gupta, MD, Ann Kellams, MD and Samuel Collins, DrPH
In June of 2023, the DEA increased the required hours of Substance and Opioid Use Disorder training for prescriber licensing from 2 hours to 8 hours.
In May, Shakun Gupta, MD, Samuel Collins, DrPH, and Ann Kellams, MD, started work to coordinate a UVA Health response. After input from School of Medicine colleagues, they narrowed down topics into eight, hour-long sessions, with an interdisciplinary panel of 20 UVA Health subject matter experts. The intention was to create up-to-date, practical, and locally applicable content that was relevant to clinicians across a spectrum of patient ages and medical specialties. For credit, no-cost recordings of this series are currently available.
Opioid related deaths have continued to increase exponentially in recent years at an epidemic rate. In his opening remarks for the series, Christopher Holstege, MD, professor of Emergency Medicine and chief of Medical Toxicology, noted that, “In thirty years of practicing Emergency Medicine and Toxicology I’ve never seen anything quite like this before,” highlighting the most recent trends and epidemiological context.
The eight sessions of the series addressed:
- Opioid Use Epidemiology and Impact on Deaths of Despair and Pediatric Populations
- Triaging and Managing Opioid Emergencies
- Novel and Over the Counter Substances Used During Opioid Abuse
- Opioid Use Disorder Concerns During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Opioid Pharmacology
- Alcohol Use Disorder and Co-use, Diagnosis and Management
- Opioid Addiction Risk in Chronic Pain Patients and Buprenorphine Management
- Motivational Interviewing Best Practices and Addressing Stigma
- The panel included an inter-professional collaboration of physicians, researchers, nurses, social workers, and pharmacists, with representation from Emergency Medicine and Medical
- Toxicology, Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine, Pediatric and Adult Primary Care, and Pharmacy.
The series was done as part of the Division of Outreach’s ECHO program. Dr. Samuel Collins leads the program and said “ECHO is a means of virtual education where we can democratize knowledge across the Commonwealth and form learning communities and opportunities that would be otherwise logistically untenable. Our intent with this series to make a set of sessions that could be viewed individually and PRN as folks have interest and clinical need, but also as part of comprehensive series.”
Over 250 clinicians from UVA and across the Commonwealth of Virginia registered for the series. Working in conjunction with Karen Rheuban, MD, the senior associate dean of Continuing Medical Education, continuing medical education credit is cost-covered for all UVA and Commonwealth of Virginia clinicians and relevant community who access the series.
Dr. Rheuban noted, “We are thrilled to partner to provide this critically important educational program that will enable all Virginia providers to meet the new eight-hour mandatory training requirements of the Drug Enforcement Agency. We are grateful for the support of all UVA collaborating team members and for funding by the Rural Emergency Health Care Grant program that enabled the development of these accredited training modules.”
The CME office is hosting the eight-hour training course at no cost to UVA and Virginia-based. This course, titled “Substance Misuse and Opioid Use Disorders – A National Problem: An Interprofessional Solution” is available on the UVA Continuing Education website at CMEVillage.com. Participants may complete some or all of the eight modules, based on their interests and needs. Credit will be awarded based on participation, with one content hour per module. This course is designed for physicians, advanced practice providers, nurses, psychologists, social workers, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals who care for patients with substance abuse disorders. Contact uvacme@virginia.edu to learn more.
Drs. Kellams, Gupta, and Collins would like to acknowledge and thank all faculty and physician fellowship panelists that came together so quickly to lend their expertise to their peers:
- Christopher Holstege, MD
- Larry Merkel, MD,PhD
- Jennifer Louis-Jacques,MD
- Ryan Cole, MD
- Avery Michienzi,DO
- Evelyn Aboagye, MD
- Jennifer Payne,MD
- Santina Zanelli, MD
- Kevin Lonabaugh, PharmD
- Andew Legan, MD
- Quincy Zhong, MD
- Nassima Ait-Daoud Tiouririne, MD
- Andrew Wolf, MD,
- Alanna Baker, LCSW
- Karen Ingersoll, PhD
- Mo Nadkarni, MD