Screening and Prophylaxis of Infectious Diseases in Addiction Practice

Topics: Addiction | Addiction Treatment | Hepatitis | HIV | Medical Comorbidities | Prevention | Substance Use | Substance use disorders

CATR: Can you tell us about your background? Dr. Springer: I’m an infectious disease doctor who is addiction medicine board certified as well. My background clinically is treating HIV and infectious diseases, as well as opioid use disorder (OUD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD). My research is about how to best integrate infectious disease and OUD trea

Harm Reduction Strategies—A Primer

Topics: Free Articles | Hepatitis | HIV | Opioid epidemic | Overdose | Prevention

As is frequently the case with chronic diseases, cure is often neither possible nor an appropriate goal in addiction treatment. That’s where the concept of “harm reduction” comes in. Such strategies can help prevent death, serious injury, or other negative consequences of substance use in patients who are continuing to use drugs or struggle with a

The Clinician’s Role: Reducing Harm Among People Who Use Drugs

Topics: Hepatitis | HIV | Opioid epidemic | Overdose | Prevention

CATR: You came out with a book last September called Getting Wrecked: Women, Incarceration, and the American Opioid Crisis (University of California Press). What lessons from your book might be relevant to the practicing clinician? Dr. Sue: The book is based on my PhD work in sociocultural and medical anthropology. I spent a lot of time in Massachusett

How to Talk to Patients About the Risk of Opioid Overdose

Topics: Hepatitis | HIV | Opioid epidemic | Overdose | Prevention

There were 47,600 deaths due to opioid-related overdoses in 2017. Put another way, in the time it’ll take you to read this issue of CATR, almost 5 Americans will die from an opioid overdose (www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/statedeaths.html). One important way to reduce risk is by empowering patients with the knowledge, skills, and tools to prevent and m