ASAM Pain & Addiction: Common Threads XXIV - 2023

Melissa Weimer is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health and Associate Program Director of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at Yale University. She is an expert in hospital-based care for patients with substance use disorders and has worked with colleagues to develop successful hospital-based Addiction Medicine Consult Services at both Oregon Health & Science University and Yale University/Yale New Haven Hospital. Dr. Weimer is also a national leader in Addiction Medicine education and has developed curricula for substance use disorder evaluation and treatment and safe and effective pain treatment. Dr. Weimer serves on the national board of ASAM and is the Chair of the ASAM Clinical Practice Guidelines Methodology and Oversight Committee.

Dr. Andrew Herring graduated from Harvard Medical School and completed his residency in emergency medicine at Highland Hospital—Alameda Health System (AHS) in Oakland, CA where he continues as an attending emergency physician and Director of Research. He is the AHS Medical Director of Substance Use Disorder Treatment and the past Medical Director of the AHS Functional Restoration Pain Clinic. Dr Herring has led national efforts to transform hospital-based care for substance use disorders and his work has been featured in local and national press including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and National Public Radio. Dr. Herring co-founded and is a PI at CA BRIDGE, one of largest state-level efforts to promote access to medication for opioid use disorder in the hospital settings. Dr. Herring’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and has been published in numerous journals including JAMA Open and Annals of Emergency Medicine; his work focuses on treatment of substance use disorders and pain management. He is a lead investigator for NIDA funded studies. Dr. Herring is board-certified in Emergency Medicine, Addiction Medicine, and Pain Medicine and is a Volunteer Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

Marianne Fingerhood is an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing.  She is the Coordinator of the Adult Gerontological Nurse Practitioner Program and is the director of the Supporting Nursing Advanced Practice Transition (SNAPT) Primary Care Fellowship.  She cares for patients with OUD in an outpatient setting and has written a curriculum related to substance use disorder. She also serves as a liaison to new providers who are learning to care for patients with OUD.

Tiffany Lu, MD, MS is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Montefiore Health Systems and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York. She is the Medical Director of Montefiore's Buprenorphine Treatment Network, where she leads an interdisciplinary team of primary care clinicians and treatment coordinators to deliver opioid use disorder treatment and overdose prevention services across 7 community health centers. Dr. Lu is also the principal investigator of a SAMHSA grant award to expand addiction medicine education at Montefiore-Einstein, which includes a new, structured clinical rotation in addiction medicine for medical residents. Additionally, she founded Montefiore's Addiction Medicine "Bridge" Clinic to provide interdisciplinary care for patients who are new to medications for addiction treatment. Dr Lu's research focus is on innovations and outcomes in primary care-based addiction treatment, particularly in low-income and racial minority communities disproportionally affected by overdose deaths.

Prior to joining Montefiore-Einstein, Dr. Lu graduated from University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine and completed her residency training in the Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. She holds a Masters of Science in Clinical Research Methods from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is board certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine.

Dr. Martin Cheatle is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Anesthesiology, and Critical Care, Director of Behavioral Medicine at the Penn Pain Medicine Center, and Director of Pain and Chemical Dependency Research at the Center for Studies of Addiction, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been conducting research and providing clinical treatment of patients with chronic pain and co-morbid disorders including substance use disorders, HIV, mood disorders, and sleep disorders as director of both university and community-based interdisciplinary pain programs.  His focus of research is in improving pain care to individuals from vulnerable populations (psychiatric, substance use disorders, HIV, sleep disorders) including developing strategies to identify and mitigate the risks associated with opioid therapy and the risk of suicide in the pain population. He was the PI of a recently completed RO1 NIDA grant on clinical and genetic characteristics of opioid addiction in chronic pain; a project PI of a NIDA P-60 Center grant on a longitudinal study of the development of a substance use disorder in patients initiating prescription opioid therapy for chronic pain in primary care; and as a co-investigator in the development of a patient-centered medical home model for improved pain care.  Currently, Dr. Cheatle is a co-investigator of many recently funded NIH grants examining the effect of cognitive behavioral therapy delivered preoperatively to patients undergoing total knee arthroplasties in reducing postoperative pain, opioid use, and the chronification of pain.

Mark Greenwald holds the Gertrude Levin Endowed Chair in Addiction and Pain Biology and is the Associate Chair for Research, and Director of the Substance Abuse Research Division, its Human Pharmacology Laboratory and outpatient opioid treatment clinic in the Dept. of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University (WSU) School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan. He is jointly appointed in the WSU Dept. of Pharmacy Practice. His clinical research program focuses on (1) pharmacological, environmental, and individual difference determinants of drug seeking/use as they relate to progression, persistence, and relapse; (2) using brain-imaging techniques (e.g. PET, 1H-MRS, EEG), pharmacokinetics, biomarkers, and behavioral phenotyping (laboratory models of drug motivation) to advance the clinical neurobiological understanding of substance use disorders; and (3) developing innovative medication and neuromodulation (e.g. rTMS, tACS) treatments for substance use disorders (e.g. opioid, cocaine and cannabis). Dr. Greenwald has published >140 empirical research papers, reviews, and book chapters, and >300 research abstracts/presentations. The NIH and other sources have continuously funded his research since 1996.  He has been principal investigator and co-investigator on many federally funded grants (especially related to opioids and buprenorphine treatment), has consulted for pharmaceutical and medical device companies related to emerging addiction medicine products, regularly reviews grant applications (he was permanent chair of two federal panels) and has peer-reviewed manuscripts for >50 substance abuse and psychiatric journals. He is a past President of Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse) of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Greenwald proudly mentors’ tenure-track junior faculty members, medical residents, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate, postbaccalaureate, and undergraduate students.

Aram Mardian, M.D. is a clinical associate professor of Family, Community, and Preventive Medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine–Phoenix is a board-certified family physician and holds additional certifications in addiction medicine, pain medicine, and medical acupuncture. He is the founding Chief of the Chronic Pain Wellness Center at the Phoenix VA Health Care System, which models interprofessional whole-person care for patients with pain and opioid use disorder.  Dr. Mardian serves as Co-Chair for the Arizona Pain and Addiction Curriculum Workgroup.

Dr. Peter Selby is a Senior Medical Consultant and Clinician Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). He is the Vice-Chair, of Research, and Giblon Professor in Family Medicine Research, a University Named Professorship at the University of Toronto.  He is also the Director of the Mental Health and Addictions Division in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto.  His research focuses on innovative methods to understand and treat addictive behaviors and their comorbidities. He also uses technology to combine clinical medicine and public health methods to scale up and test health interventions.

He has received grant funding totaling over 100 million dollars from CIHR, NIH, and the Ministry of Health and has published >150 peer-reviewed publications. He has published 6 books (including 5 edited), is the author of 31 book chapters, and has 38 research reports prepared for the government. He is the Chair of the Medical Education Council for the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Dr. Selby mentors Fellows in Addiction Medicine and Addiction Psychiatry, junior investigators, and medical students. The use of innovative methods to communicate messages makes Dr. Selby a sought-after speaker for various topics including addictive disorders, motivational interviewing, and health behavior change at individual and system levels. 

Katrina Nickels is a palliative care and addiction medicine physician at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, KY. She did her medical training at the University of Kentucky, and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine.  She worked in hospice and palliative care for 12 years with Bluegrass Care Navigators.  She joined ASAM in 2018 and has been a board member of the KY chapter since 2020.  She graduated from formal training in the addiction medicine fellowship in the UK in 2022. Her clinical interests are the intersection of pain, palliative care, substance use, and serious medical illness.

Julie Childers is an addiction medicine and palliative care physician at the University of Pittsburgh, where she developed and now directs the Addiction Medicine Fellowship. She has written and taught nationally in the areas of managing addiction in individuals with serious illnesses, communication, motivational interviewing, and medical ethics. In 2021, she was elected to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine's Academy of Master Educators.

Laura Morgan Frankart is currently Director of Education and Assessment and Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacotherapy and Outcomes Science at Virginia Commonwealth University/Medical College of Virginia. She works as a clinical pharmacist in palliative care at VCU Health Massey Cancer Center. She previously worked for 9 years in the Primary Care Pain Clinic in the MCV Physicians Internal Medicine clinic. She has co-authored publications related to using opioid risk screening tools and prescription monitoring programs in practice and unintentional prescription opioid overdose.