Jul 15, 2016
Medication-assisted treatment is an important approach for some people with substance use disorders. It is also frequently misunderstood--isn't treating someone with methadone for a heroin problem simply "trading one addiction for another?" Our guest, Dr. Frances Levin, will discuss this and other misconceptions regarding medication-assisted treatment.
Dr. Levin is the Kennedy-Leavy Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and the Chief of the Division on Substance Abuse at New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University. For the past 17 years she has been the Director of the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital and for the past 12 years, she has been the principle investigator of a T32 National Institute on Drug Abuse funded Substance Abuse Research Fellowship.
Her research interests include pharmacologic and psychotherapeutic treatment interventions for cocaine and marijuana abuse, and treatment approaches for substance abusers with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and other psychiatric illnesses.
She is also Medical Director of the Providers’ Clinical Support System- Medication Assisted Treatments (PCSS-MAT), a national training and mentoring initiative focused on addressing prescription opioid misuse.
Good summary. I work in this field and am always looking for additional helpful ways to explain these concepts to people, including patients, families, and community members.
Dr Levin helped me be able to provide a different perspective to people who are very skeptical about MAT. This is particularly important when so many people are struggling with OUD and the overdose rate is increasing.