The following is a list of past and future critical issues and consensus conferences put on by the BFI since September, 2006:

• September, 2006: "What is Recovery? A Working Definition from the Betty Ford Institute." Conclusions and recommendations published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, October, 2007.
  
  
• October, 2007: "Extending the Benefits of Addiction Treatment; Practical Strategies for Continuing Care and Recovery." The conclusions and recommendations of this conference are scheduled for publication in the early fall of 2008.
  
  
• September, 2008: "What is Recovery Redux?" Phase II of the BFI Conference system is designed to assess the accuracy of the conclusions of the original "Recovery Conference" and to evaluate the impact of its recommendations on the addiction treatment field.
  
  
• December, 2008: A Critical Issues Consensus Conference drawing attention to the virtual absence of formal graduate medical education of primary care physicians in the recognition and treatment of addictive disease. The title of the conference is, "Addressing the Crisis: Helping Graduate Medical Education Integrate Addiction Medicine and Science into Primary Care."   

A very distinguished group of faculty members have accepted invitations to present seminal papers at the conference. In addition, they will participate 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 give us 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 common diseases. A primary purpose of the conference will be to speculate about reasons for this critical situation, and to devise a strategy 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 will be 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 conferences are especially timely in that many other similar conferences have been held over the past 10 years, but little or nothing has resulted from 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 later to evaluate the success of the strategy in terms of its incorporation  into the mandatory fabric of graduate medical education for the addictions.