Didactic Curriculum

Faculty, fellows, and community practitioners meet weekly for teaching sessions.

Didactics are currently held virtually due to the COVID pandemic.

These sessions cover main topics from the American Society of Addiction Medicine Principles of Addiction Medicine textbook as well as research updates.

Quarterly Morbidity & Mortality conferences are incorporated to lead a discussion on areas for improvement in the treatment of patients with substance use disorders.

These teaching sessions are held on Mondays 4 to 5 p.m..

Addiction Medicine didactics are CME accredited. 

Fellows are also given protected academic time weekly on Wednesday afternoons to attend the national ACAAM didactic series.

Grand Rounds are held monthly to promote an interdisciplinary team approach in delivering care for patients struggling with substance use disorders.

The presentations are open to learners from a variety of healthcare fields and at all levels of training. Content includes management of substance use disorders in different patient populations and treatment settings, review of various treatment modalities to deliver patient-centered care, case conferencing to open up discussions on how to problem-solve challenging cases, and advancing teaching skills as educators.

The goals are to bring together a team approach, encourage camaraderie in our workplace community, and further achievements in the core competencies of medical knowledge and systems-based practices.

Addiction Medicine Grand Rounds are CME accredited.

Fellows become leaders as advocates for patients with substance use disorders throughout their fellowship experience.

Classroom teaching opportunities include didactics with community practitioners, Grand Rounds for Family Medicine residents at University at Buffalo, and Family Medicine clerkship students for medical students.

Addiction Medicine fellows are also integral in the clinical teaching of students, residents and fellows from other disciplines rotating at departmental sites.

The fellowship participates in mentoring students of UB MAPS (Minority Association for Pre-Medical Students).

Pre-medical students are linked with interested faculty and fellows for shadowing at clinical sites.

This outreach opportunity further encourages destigmatization of patients with substance use disorders in the healthcare community by linking with learners at an early stage in their career.

This initiative also aims to increase diversity in future addiction medicine healthcare professionals.