Rebroadcasting: So You Want to be an Addiction Doc?: Career Pathways in Addiction Medicine

Kinna Thakarar DO, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Maine Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine in Portland, Maine. She is board-certified in internal medicine, infectious diseases, and addiction medicine and has a special interest in health services research related to the ID/ substance use disorder syndemic. Dr. Thakarar is currently an affiliated investigator at the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation in Maine and is the PI of a pilot study supported by grant U54 GM115516 from the National Institutes of Health for the Northern New England Clinical and Translational Research network, titled "Rural Harm Reduction Access and Regional Trends Among People Hospitalized with Injection Drug Use-Associated Infections." She completed ID fellowship and additional addiction medicine training at Boston Medical Center.

Shonali Saha, MD is a board-certified internal and addiction medicine specialist. She completed fellowships in both addiction and adolescent medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She completed her residency program at Cambridge Health Alliance of Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Saha began working in the field of substance abuse in 1996 with women mandated to residential drug treatment. She currently treats substance use disorders in adolescents, adults, and families in her own private practice. She also educates medical students, residents, and faculty on addiction medicine as an adjunct assistant professor at Emory School of Medicine and as a preceptor for physician assistant students at Mercer University.

As an active member of The Georgia Society of Addiction Medicine and a former member of The American Society of Addiction Medicine legislative committee, she is an advocate for the improvement and expansion of addiction medicine services locally and nationally.

Dr. Saha is not only a doctor, but also a certified yoga instructor. She teaches her patients breathing and other stress reduction techniques to provide evidence based treatment.

Dr. Deanna Wilson is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She received her MD from Yale University School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She completed additional subspecialty training in both adolescent and addiction medicine also at Johns Hopkins. She currently sees patients at UPMC’s Center for Opioid Recovery, a Pennsylvania Center of Excellence. She provides inpatient addiction medicine consultation to patients hospitalized at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital and is Medical Director for the Center for Adolescent and Young Adult Recovery and Empowerment. 

She has expertise in integrating harm reduction, substance use treatment, and primary care into clinical practice. Her current research interests are in the design and evaluation of interventions to engage and retain hospitalized young adults who inject drugs into substance use treatment. She leverages health services research, implementation science, and community engaged methods to improve health equity for vulnerable populations who use substances.