UB Stepping Up Efforts to Combat Opioid Abuse

The initiative is part of a joint effort between UB and Erie County to develop a comprehensive approach to address the area’s opioid abuse epidemic.

The partnership will take advantage of resources at the university that have long been involved in exploring the origins and impact of addiction, such as the Research Institute on Addictions (RIA), a national leader in the study of substance use and abuse.

The RIA has pioneered studies in the neurobiology, the causes and consequences, and the treatment of addictions, according to its director Kenneth E. Leonard, PhD, professor of psychiatry.

“RIA will help the university develop a comprehensive framework for education in addiction, based on current course offerings, as well as new ones under development, at the undergraduate and graduate levels, in addition to supporting graduate degrees, concentrations and certificate programs in disciplines that commonly address addiction-related issues,” Leonard says.

Efforts are ongoing to recruit residents into fellowships that focus on pain and addiction who will then continue as faculty with expertise to educate and provide much needed care, according to Roseanne C. Berger, MD, senior associate dean for graduate medical education.

“UB sponsors fellowships in pain medicine, hospice and palliative care and in addiction medicine,” she adds. “These fellowships build on the education included in the core residency years, which will be enriched by the collaborations with RIA and others.”

Specific departments have developed nationally recognized expertise in treating patients with substance abuse problems. Faculty in the Department of Family Medicine direct the National Center for Physician Training in Addiction Medicine.

Richard D. Blondell, MD, a professor of family medicine, heads the effort, developing curricula and guidelines for the nation’s graduate medical education programs in addiction medicine, while also teaching medical students and current practitioners about preventing and treating addiction.

The department, which has three full-time addiction physicians, also administers a fellowship in addiction medicine, funded by the Erie County Medical Center.

“There’s a patient care imbalance,” Blondell explains. “Physicians write a large number of scripts for pain, and then some patients become addicted, but there is a very limited number of addiction physicians who can treat them.”

Throughout UB, faculty are developing new instructional materials that emphasize safe prescribing practices.

Karl Fiebelkorn, senior associate dean for student, professional and community affairs in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, educates students about opioid abuse and works with county officials to train students to administer Narcan, a medication that reverses overdoses.

Part of the new curriculum will include educating students about how opiate addiction develops, especially in young patients.

“High school students do not one day decide to start injecting heroin,” Fiebelkorn says. “It might start with an opioid prescription for a legitimate injury or finding grandma’s pain pills in her medicine cabinet. Once they get hooked, they want more. If they can’t get more pills, they end up mixing with the wrong people and buying heroin.”

Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, says it is natural for UB to lead the endeavor.

“UB is in a unique position to effect positive change in terms of safe prescribing practices since we train so many of the region’s health care providers, graduating more than 600 new health care professionals every year,” he says. “Our interprofessional focus, where we train students in all six health science schools to work with each other on multidisciplinary teams, is ideally suited to addressing this public health crisis.”  

The Tower Foundation has awarded a $64,500 grant to the county to develop guidelines for health care providers on safe prescribing practices and training for safe pain management.

“Residency education is going to build on its existing practice of training residents to screen for, and properly manage, patients with substance abuse and related issues that affect patients and their families,” Cain says.

The effort will involve UB’s health sciences schools — the school of medicine, the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Nursing, the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the School of Public Health and Health Professions — as well as the School of Social Work.