Celebrating 30 years of CSAM-SMCA in Vancouver, BC, the conference focused on: Crisis, Controversy & Change. What is the role of education in tackling the overdose crisis?
Three speakers at the education session on Friday offered several potential solutions.

Friday, October 26th: Medical Education in Addictions (CSAM-SMCA Education Committee)

(1:30) Who Learns the Most about Addictions in Hospitals? A Mixed Methods Study.
Jan Klimas (representing a co-author team: Gorfinkel, L., Ahamad, K., Mead, A., McLean, M., Fairgrieve, C., Nolan, S., Small, W., Cullen, W., Wood, E., and Nadia Fairbairn), summarised the results of a 2-year evaluation of the addiction medicine consult team in the St Paul’s hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia. Learners, such as medical students, completed web surveys before and after their clinical placements with the team. A purposeful sample participated in post-elective interviews. Results of this research study will soon appear in a paper accepted for publication in the Substance Abuse journal.

(1:45) Addiction Medicine Mentorship: Capacity Building Through Relationship Building.
Kate Hardy (Manager) and Sarah Clarke (Sarah Clarke) from the Metaphi mentoring project spoke about the role of primary care providers in the treatment of substance use disorders. The length of the treatment is more important than the intensity. Patients prefer to be treated in primary care. Integrating mental health with physical health services creates better outcomes. Primary care has greater capacity for treatment. But many providers are not willing to take over the care of persons with SUD. Medical mentoring of primary care providers by specialists. There’s no wrong door to access the addictions treatment. Mentorship, such the one provided via Hardy’s and Clarke’s project – metaphi – must be easy and convenient, sufficiently incentivized. Check out the project website www.metaphi.ca.

(2:00) The ABC’s of Addiction Fellowship Programs in Canada.
Melanie Willows (introducing her co-author team: Anees Bahji, Annabel Mead, Nikki Bozinoff, Ron Lim, Lydia Vezina, Ronald Fraser & Kim Corace) and a group of fellowship directors facilitated a session,  which was sponsored by the CSAM education committee, about the Canadian fellowships in addiction medicine and offered recommendations for the future of the training programmes in Canada. In addition to the fellowship directors, the talk started with a lived experience of someone who has been accepted to the fellowship but who has not started the fellowship. A recent fellowship alumna concluded the group presentation.

If you enjoyed reading about this year’s CSAM 2018 conference, you can read about the CSAM 2015 here