Resources for Prescribers

This video shares 7 common myths healthcare providers have about prescribing buprenorphine. Dr. Fagan, a family physician with the Mountain Area Health Education Center in Asheville, N.C., explains that buprenorphine treatment is NOT dangerous, time consuming or burdensome and clarifies that Medication Assisted Treatment is NOT “simply substituting one addiction for another.”

The standard of care for prescribing opioids for chronic pain management has evolved over recent years placing much more emphasis on risk mitigation, with increased attention to monitoring and limiting over-reliance on opioids, including limiting dose escalation. As a consequence, clinicians are having to learn how to present this to patients and how to respond to questions and concerns from them, including from patients used to the previous standard. In this video Dr. Jim Finch shares possible responses to several questions patients frequently ask.

With careful risk assessment, treatment planning, and monitoring, opioids may provide relief while being used safely. But even with the best intentions, it will at times become apparent that it is no longer safe or appropriate to continue using these medications and the clinician must then discuss these concerns with the patient. In this video, Dr. Jim Finch provides tips for how the clinician might approach these conversations.

The treatment of pain can be highly challenging. How we think about these patients and how we construct our responses determine whether the interaction will have a positive or not so positive outcome. In this video, Dr. Steven Prakken provides suggestions about how to make these interactions more productive.

Patients and providers alike have personalities, assumptions and agendas which greatly affect behavior and doctor/patient interactions. Dr. Steven Prakken explores how normal human tendencies create challenges when mixed with chronic pain and addresses how practitioners can better treat the complex pain patient.

In this video Dr. Laura Levin (MD, FAAP, FABPM, AdM), who is double boarded in pediatrics and addiction medicine with expertise in transgender medicine, discusses substance use disorders within the LGBTQ population. Learn how healthcare providers can better understand this population to provide more inclusive, LGBTQ specific, culturally competent care. The websites below offer additional resources to further your understanding of the LGBTQ population.

• National LGBT Health Education Center – (LGBTHEALTHEDUCATION.ORG)
• The Center of Excellence for Transgender Health (transhealth.ucsf.edu)
• Gay and Lesbian Medical Assoc. (GLAM.ORG)
• Safe Zone Project (safezoneproject.org)
• Equality North Carolina (EqualityNC.ORG)
• Human Rights Campaign (HRC.ORG)
• Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbian and Gays (PFLAG.ORG)
• Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD.ORG)
• National Center for Transgender Equality (transequality.org)

Family physician and addiction specialist Dr. Paul Martin explains how mixtures of medications including cocaine, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, and gabapentinoids are playing an ever increasing role in the evolving opioid epidemic.