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Conference

Graduate Medical Education

"Addressing The Crisis...Graduate Medical Education..."

A very distinguished group of faculty members accepted invitations to present seminal papers at the conference. In addition, they participated in the debate and discussions leading to a consensus about the critical nature of the serious deficiency that exists in graduate medical education that will continue to produce generations of unprepared and unqualified physicians who have never acquired core clinical skills and competencies that are essential for the diagnosis and treatment of alcoholics and other addicts. Worse still, these physicians will be practicing medicine without insight or knowledge about the negative, and often fatal, ways in which alcohol and drug abuse and dependence can influence the course of other chronic diseases.

A primary purpose of the conference was to speculate about reasons for this critical situation, and to devise strategies designed to bring about a change towards inclusion of addiction medicine training at all levels and in all aspects of graduate medical education. This strategy is designed to increase the likelihood that organizations such as the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education and other relevant bodies will be willing to include this vital element as a mandatory component in their required curricula for training.

The conference was especially timely in that many other similar conferences have been held over the past 10 years, but changes have not been achieved at the level hoped despite the labors of the many individuals and organizations involved. As a way of avoiding this shortfall, this GME conference will be followed by a Phase II Conference two years hence to evaluate the success of the consensus recommendations and strategies for change and to refine them as needed to increase their impact on the fabric of graduate medical education for the addictions.

Resources

ACGME Description
ACGME Policies and Procedures (2008)
ACGME Program Requirements for Addiction Psychiatry (2003)
ACGME Program Requirements for Family Medicine (2007)
ACGME Program Requirements for Internal Medicine (2007)
ACGME Program Requirements for Internal Medicine—Impact Statement (2008)
ACGME Program Requirements for Internal Medicine—Proposed Revisions (2008)
Alford: An Evaluation of the Chief Resident Immersion Training (CRIT) (2008)
AMERSA Strategic Plan: A New Approach to Substance Use Disorders (2002)
Arnsten: Teaching About Substance Abuse with Objective Structured Clinical Exams–OSCE (2006)
Christison: Requiring a One-Week Addiction Treatment Experience (2003)
D'Onofrio: Improving Emergency Medicine Residents' Approach to Patients With Alcohol Problems (2002)
El-Guebaly: Medical Education in Substance-Related Disorders—Components and Outcome (2000)
Fleming: Who Teaches Residents About the Prevention and Treatment of Substance Use Disorders? (1999)
Isaacson: National Survey of Training Substance Use Disorders in Residency Programs (2000)
ONDCP Leadership Conference on Medical Education in Substance Abuse: Working Groups Reports (2004)
ONDCP Second Leadership Conference on Medical Education in Substance Abuse (2006)
ONDCP Third Leadership Conference on Medical Education in Substance Abuse (2008)
Report of the AMA Council on Medical Education (2007)

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