Eight New Addiction Medicine Fellowship Programs Accredited

Eight new addiction medicine fellowship programs have been accredited by the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM) Foundation, bringing the total number of programs to 18, Newswise reports.

Doctors who complete one of these fellowships are eligible to sit for the ABAM exam to become certified in addiction medicine. There are 47 addiction medicine fellowship slots available, although some slots are not yet funded, according to the article.

“These new fellowships will help insure that trained addiction medicine physicians join other addiction professionals in the interdisciplinary care of patients with addictive disorders,” said Jeffrey H. Samet, MD, MA, MPH, President of ABAM and the ABAM Foundation Board of Directors. “This clinical training, coupled with passage of our rigorous examination, will help to provide evidence-based addiction treatment to those who need it.”

The new fellowship programs are located at the Betty Ford Center/Eisenhower Medical Center, Rancho Mirage, California; Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Hartford Hospital, Hartford, Connecticut; St. Joseph Mercy Hospital Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Michigan; St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; St. Vincent Charity Medical Center, Cleveland, Ohio; Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Stanford, California; and Yale-New Haven Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut.

“Our workforce projections suggest that, by 2020, we will need 50 addiction medicine fellowship training programs with 200 physician slots,” said Richard Blondell, MD, Chair of the Foundation’s Training and Accreditation Committee. “One of the main obstacles to establishing these programs is funding.”

Demand for addiction treatment will expand as the Affordable Care Act adds millions of new patients to the system. Addiction medicine courses are rarely offered in medical school, the article notes.