The UF College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry’s Division of Addiction Medicine has been awarded $2.76 million by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration, or HRSA, for expansion of their addiction medicine fellowship.
The HRSA Addiction Medicine Program increases the number of fellows that can be trained at accredited Addiction Medicine Fellowship and Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship programs throughout the U.S., with $20.3 million awarded to 44 recipients, including UF. The program seeks to produce more addiction medicine specialists to work in underserved, community-based settings that integrate primary care with mental health disorders and substance use disorder prevention and treatment services.
This five-year, multi-departmental, multi-institutional project is led by Scott Teitelbaum, M.D., vice chair of the department of psychiatry and chief of the division of addiction medicine. In addition to the psychiatry department and the division of addiction medicine, training and education will be provided by the obstetrics and gynecology department and Meridian Behavioral Healthcare. As part of the fellowship training, program faculty will provide primary care faculty and residents in family medicine with the education, training and experience necessary to achieve proficiency in the essentials of addiction medicine, transforming their “usual” care and creating force multipliers necessary to address the opioid crisis and other drug threats.
Over the coming five years, HRSA fellows with primary care backgrounds will be recruited to the UF program and trained to subsequently practice in medically underserved areas or with medically underserved populations.
“This funding could not come at a better time, as increased numbers of Americans are suffering from substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health conditions,” Teitelbaum said. “The award will strengthen our already exceptional fellowship training program in addiction medicine and enable us to work with as well as train more primary care physicians. This will allow increased access to treatment services for people in need in underserved populations. Our mission has and always will be to treat and help individuals and families who suffer from the disease of addiction.”
UF’s addiction medicine fellowship program is one of the largest in the country and is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The fellows participate in a wide range of academic activities including clinical and basic science research, medical education and patient care clinics. The fellowship offers training in inpatient detoxification, evaluation, treatment and consults, as well as outpatient and partial hospitalization and treatment.