Moving on: helping young people
In this Insight article Gemma Turner, Cobh Community Based Drugs Worker, provides a brief history of the project while Jano Klimas gives a sense of the impact of the youth initiative from the evaluation in 2009.
Towards a research agenda for addiction education in Europe, u21 poster
u21 health sciences group 2020 virtual meeting: A collaborative approach to healthcare was hosted by University College Dublin from August 25th – 28th. Here is a summary of my research submitted to the virtual meeting. (more…)
How to find non-academic mentors
Mentors facilitate professional development in academia. But non-academic mentors are equally important. Here, I acknowledge non-academic mentors and their contribution to my development as a professional and as a person.
Engage in not for profit organizations.
Two organizations jump started my work in non-profits, the University Pastoral Centre and a youth club. I learned the power of community building through youth activism with John Lesondak and taught team building for non-profits with Ivan Humenik. With Ivan and friends, we also had a musical band, JK& band. These activities inspired me to get involved in the community projects for people who use drugs. (more…)
Can Community First Responders reverse Cardiac arrests?
Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a major cause of death. It occurs when a person’s heart stops pumping blood around the body. It is most often caused by an abnormal heart rhythm. Cardiac arrest causes death within minutes unless this rhythm restarts. (more…)
Off the record: addictions in medical schools
“If it’s not recorded, it didn’t happen.”
– An old saying
We wanted to find out how much teaching on addiction get on medical students. In 2011, our colleagues Sarah O’Brien and Professor Cullen searched PubMed (online database of medical papers) for published literature on training of undergraduate medical students in addiction
There is currently no documentation of drug addiction teaching sessions in Irish medical schools.
 |
| photocredit: mrmediatraining.com |
We looked at other medical databases and we also searched websites of all 6 medical schools in Ireland. We have searched the literature published after October 2009.
We found nothing in the medical databases. Schools’ homepages did not mention addiction either.
A telephone survey may provide a more accurate representation of how addiction medicine education is incorporated into the medical school curricula.
Substance use disorders are a worldwide problem, and have become a major health concern in Ireland particularly.
In their new position paper on addiction, the Irish Medical Organisation recognized the lacking education and called for “appropriate training of all physicians in treatment of addiction” (Irish Medical Organisation, 2015). Although the science behind addiction treatment has discovered new treatments for addiction, the medical doctors don’t know about them, mainly because they get no training on addiction. As a result, they feel unprepared to treat people with addiction who receive inadequate care.
To cite this article: Mitch Wilson, Walter Cullen, Christine Goodair & Jan Klimas (2016): Off the record: Substance-related disorders in the undergraduate medical curricula in Ireland. Journal of Substance Use, DOI: 10.3109/14659891.2015.1112853