Innovations in Medical Education: Addiction Medicine Educational Consults.

BACKGROUND

Addiction medical care is a core competency for internal medicine residents, yet most hospital systems lack an addiction medicine consult service to provide residents with practice-based learning opportunities.

AIM: Provide medical residents with clinical training in evidence-based approaches to treating substance use disorders.

SETTING

Large, urban, academic tertiary care internal medicine residency program

PARTICIPANTS

Internal medicine residents on inpatient services PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: Creation of an "educational consult" program where residents caring for patients with substance use disorders discuss cases with an addiction medicine provider to learn patient-relevant addiction medicine principles and management techniques PROGRAM EVALUATION: Over one academic year, 44 educational consults for residents were completed involving 50 unique trainees, mostly focusing on opioid (37, 84%) and alcohol (11, 25%) related topics. Follow-up survey data showed high levels of satisfaction (average 4.9/5 using a Likert scale), with 70% of respondents (20 of 28) reporting that the consult resulted in changes to patient care and 50% of respondents (14 of 28) reporting that the consult changed their approach to future patients.

DISCUSSION: Educational consults are a feasible tool to provide trainees at the graduate medical education level with advanced clinical exposures in settings lacking addiction medicine consult services.