Substance abuse is not just a medical problem, but one with societal, economic, political and numerous other ramifications.
That realization underlies the creation of the faculty development program in substance abuse by the Addiction Research Institute in the School of Medicine. The program’s basic goals are to increase clinical knowledge and skills, and give participating faculty fellows -- and the people they share knowledge with --a sense that they can make a difference in the lives of people suffering with substance abuse problems.
While it strives to institutionalize curricular innovations for medical professionals, the program also seeks to increase community-academic linkages focused on prevention of substance abuse. Institute Director Eugene Schoener, PhD, says those goals made the institute a natural fit for a grant from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The institute is nearing the end of the second year of a three-year, $750,000 award from CSAP in order to broaden its effort to link WSU academicians and clinicians with the community. While the project overlaps with initiatives in the federal empowerment zone program, it was awarded independently, says Dr. Schoener, who established the institute in 1985 to address a broad range of policy, prevention and training issues related to substance abuse. The linkage effort began in earnest last year, following an intensive self-assessment by faculty participants and a learner-centered training program to meet their individual needs.
"We anticipate that the faculty fellows will achieve palpable results for the community and WSU in a host of ways," Dr. Schoener says. Those include innovative community prevention services; training and motivating local health care providers; creating new culturally specific prevention strategies; educating professional peers and trainees about physician-initiated prevention; and serving as change agents for the health care community. Fellows work with teams comprising academic colleagues, graduate trainees, medical students and community-based clinicians.
Currently, five faculty fellows are supported by the grant. They include Eric Ayers, MD, assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics; Stan Golec, MD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences; Melinda Henderson, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences; John Hopper, MD, assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics; and Lawrence Warbasse III, MD, assistant professor of internal medicine.
The fellows’ collective aim is to develop strong personal and professional relationships with individuals in community-based organizations and the communities they serve. The program’s linkage efforts include:
-Dr. Golec’s work with the chronic mentally ill in the Crisis Center of Detroit Receiving Hospital. His efforts are aimed at prevention of substance abuse and decreased utilization of hospital services through aggressive, early intervention for those patients;
-Dr. Henderson’s affiliation with the American Indian Health Center of Detroit. Working alongside counselors there on cases involving substance abuse and personality disorders, she has learned that the conventional approach recommended for such patients must be tailored to fit the center’s culturally derived holistic approach;
-Dr. Warbasse’s efforts to establish an affiliation with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians to design culturally specific patient placement criteria. Additionally, he would like to expand the group’s treatment efforts by encouraging the development of early intervention and prevention strategies;
-Dr. Ayers’ link with Detroit’s Burton Detention Center. He is working with detainees at the center to develop a computer game that rewards healthy behaviors by advancing players to the next level of the game; and
-Dr. Hopper’s visual approach to prevention in his work with young men at the Boniface Human Services agency, which serves much of southwest Detroit’s Latino community. In the first stage of a video production on prevention, Dr. Hopper has asked the youths to take photographs of what they see in their neighborhoods as the consequences of substance abuse. Dr. Hopper says the exercise forces young people to think creatively about the problems of substance abuse.
"We don’t go to these agencies asking to study them or telling them what wonderful knowledge we have to offer them," Dr. Schoener says. "Wisdom comes from sharing."
Participants say the learner-centered nature of the faculty development program has made for an invaluable experience. Dr. Schoener and the fellows agreed it has helped members of the institute, the agencies and the community to better understand and deal with problems related to substance abuse.
Reprinted from Inside Wayne State. Written by Tom Tigani.