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NIDA Releasing New Materials to Educate Medical Students about Drug Abuse

With the serious problem of increasing prescription drug abuse across the country, many organizations are trying to make it harder for people to get access to unauthorized prescription painkillers, such as the FDA, pain specialists, and drug companies who are starting to develop abuse-resistant drugs.

Today, the National Institute on Drug Abuse announced new teaching tools designed to help medical students and other doctors-in-training learn about assessing and treating patients with abuse problems, including tobacco, prescription drugs, and illicit substances.

The materials, available at www.drugabuse.gov/coe, mark the first step that NIDA has taken to educating physicians about drug abuse, according to Gayathri Dowling, NIDA’s deputy chief of science policy.

Currently, the amount of education students receive in medical school about drug abuse is quite varied, and many doctors aren’t sufficiently trained in this area. NIDA’s new materials, based on case studies and designed to be incorporated into the current curriculum, will present “real-world scenarios that medical students can grapple with,” Dowling told Shirley S. Wang of the Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog.

For instance, methamphetamine users can experience chest pain, so doctors should know to ask about drug abuse when presented with a patient suffering from chest pain

NIDA is also exploring whether to develop these materials into a continuing medical education course that licensed doctors could take to accrue the credits they need to continue practicing, Dowling said.

Dowling said the hope is that by getting to physicians early, doctors will incorporate the assessment and treatment of drug abuse into their regular practice.

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