Addiction Medicine Fellowship - Applicant Organization: Boston Medical Center Corporation Project Director: Alyssa Peterkin, MD Project Contact: 617-414-6900; alyssa.peterkin@bmc.org Funds Requested: $3,997,395 Requesting Funding Priority 3 and Funding Preference 1, 2 Overview. The purpose of the proposed project is to provide evidence-based, high-quality prevention and treatment services for people with substance use disorders (SUDs) at risk of health disparities by developing, expanding and evaluating an interdisciplinary Addiction Fellowship Program that will train physicians to be clinical and academic leaders in Addiction Medicine and Addiction Psychiatry. The program based at Boston Medical Center (BMC), New England’s largest safety-net hospital, Massachusetts’s largest Medicaid Accountable Care Organization and the primary teaching affiliate for Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine (SOM), the rural-serving Brien Center, Boston Health Care for the Homeless, Codman Square and NeighborHealth South End Health Centers in medically underserved communities (MUCs). Our collaborative proposal will leverage our nationally recognized Addiction Fellowship training programs from BMC’s Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry. The lead applicant program is our Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program. We will recruit and train highly qualified physicians who have completed an ACGME-accredited Residency Program and are board-eligible or board-certified in: Internal Medicine, Family Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Emergency Medicine, Pediatrics, Preventive Medicine, or Psychiatry. We have based our proposed program on our extensive experience and the premises that training the next generation of Addiction Medicine and Addiction Psychiatry leaders to improve health outcomes for at risk patients requires knowledge and experience in: (1) population-based care delivery and research; (2) public health practice focused on health disparities in both rural and urban populations; (3) medical education, including patient care and clinical preventive medicine; and (4) implementation, evaluation, and improvement of system-level changes to prevent disease burden and improve health outcomes across populations. Our program goal is to increase the number of board-certified physicians in addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry who serve in medically underserved community-based and rural settings. Our confidence that we can achieve this goal is based on our well-established record of training addiction specialists that are already working in high-need communities. Future funding will ensure that we continue to build and expand our prior success. To accomplish this goal we will (1) increase the number of addiction trained physicians to practice in medically underserved community-based settings and integrate primary care with mental health and SUD prevention and treatment services; (2) increase fellows’ knowledge to assist their patients to navigate legal and social systems related to patients’ clinical needs (3) increase awareness of addiction medicine as a sub-specialty and reduce provider stigma to increase the number of physicians interested in pursuing careers in addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry through the provision of clinical rotations that expose medical students and residents to practice in these specialties and through education and consultation. We will conduct five iterations of the full curriculum during the project period, delivering to a total of 25 Fellows (15 Addiction Medicine and 10 Addiction Psychiatry Fellows). The program will be led by Alyssa Peterkin, MD, a general internist and Addiction Medicine Specialist, and Michael Dawes, MD, Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Director. Also serving in leadership roles will be Alexander Walley MD, MSc, and Zoe Weinstein, MD, MS.
