Publications

Dr. Garrett O'Connor Published In Addiction Professional

“Doctors’ role in the prescription abuse crisis” is the subject of an article by Garrett O’Connor, MD, President of the Betty Ford Institute, in the July/August 2010 issue of Addiction Professional magazine.
Dr. O’Connor says that as a consequence of inadequate education about addiction in medical school and residency training, a significant majority of physicians in the U.S. wittingly or unwittingly contribute to the prescription drug epidemic because they lack the skill, knowledge and training to diagnose and treat addictive disease.  These deficiencies are exacerbated by prejudice against addicts, radical changes in patterns of clinical practice, substandard reimbursement and a nihilistic attitude about treatment’s efficacy.
There are currently approximately 780,000 licensed physicians in the U.S. with about 15,000 new graduates joining their ranks each year.  A survey conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) found that 57% of doctors believe it is their primary responsibility for preventing prescription drug diversion and abuse.  However, two-thirds of these physicians report they only received two hours of less of training in prescription drug diversion in medical school, residency or continuing medical education.  Since only one-third of these physicians feel their training is inadequate, it’s reasonable to assume the other two-thirds (520,000) of the U.S. physicians currently in practice lack the knowledge and skills to diagnose and manage addictive disease.  These undertrained physicians will thus proceed to treat the symptoms of the disease but not the disease itself.

Related posts:

1. Addiction Training for US Physicians
2. Integrating Addiction Medicine Into Graduate Medical Education in Primary Care: The Time Has Come
3. Filling in a Gap in Medical Education
4. Dr. Garrett O’Connor Honored in Ireland
5. Dr. Garrett O’Connor Delivers Keynote Address at University Day at NYU