Towards a New Consensus for Addiction Medicine Training
While substance use disorders (SUDs) are common, a standardised approach to addiction medicine training is less so.
This can lead to unsuitable treatment.
A new study published in the academic journal Substance Abuse asks for the opinions of addiction experts, with a view to reaching a consensus on the necessary core skills that medical education ought to cover at undergraduate, postgraduate and continued medical education (CME) levels, respectively.
Listed below are the authors’ suggestions as a result of their investigation:
At undergraduate level, teachers should:
- Cover all basic knowledge in relation to addiction treatment and substance use.
- Foster non-judgemental attitudes towards addiction and those who use substances.
- Introduce and practice clinical skills, such as screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment (SBIRT).
- Develop students’ awareness of country-specific and/or local needs.
At postgraduate level, teachers should:
- Tailor knowledge dissemination to suit chosen medical specialities.
- Emphasise clinical skills training, especially interviewing, history taking and identifying concurrent mental health problems.
- Communicate to students that addiction treatment also involves prevention and the need to reduce the harmful secondary effects of substance use, for example social consequences.
- Develop students’ understanding of the various needs of specific sub-groups of substance users, such as women or those who take drugs intravenously.
- Highlight the medical complications of substance use relating to the student’s chosen speciality. For example, in alcohol addiction courses, address alcohol-related physical illnesses.
At CME level, courses should be tailored to meet the specific demands of a given geographical context or medical specialism. The emphasis should be on ‘developments in the field’, for example emerging treatments and/or new substances. Knowledge should be continually refreshed and updated to reflect the current situation.
From the above information, we can extract a number of proposed core principles for addiction medicine training:
- A progressive model of learning that moves from the more general to the specific.
- As well as developing specialist knowledge and clinical skills, the fostering of professional attitudes towards substance use ought to be a key component of addiction medicine training.
- Addiction treatment should be specific to national and/or local contexts and consider the various needs of different social groups.
The authors claim that while it is “unclear whether a global curriculum is needed”, to implement such strategies would have a “profound effect on the quality of care for addicted patients worldwide”.
