Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder Course: Criminal Justice Focus

Daniel Alford, MD, MPH, FACP, DFASAM is a Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean of Continuing Medical Education at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM). He is on staff in the Section of General Internal Medicine and Director of the Clinical Addiction Research and Education (CARE) Unit at Boston Medical Center. He is the Medical Director of the CDC-funded Boston Sustainable Models for unhealthy Alcohol use ReducTion (B SMART) and the HRSA funded SBIRT And FASD Education, Support and Treatment (SAFEST) Choice programs. 

Dr. John Chardavoyne is a Psychiatrist and the Medical Director of Bright Heart Health, a Telehealth organization that offers treatment services to individuals with substance use disorders, psychiatric illness (including eating disorders), and chronic pain. Most recently, he acted as Interim Chief Medical Officer of Stonington Institute, Director of Medical Services at the Stonington Institute Partial Hospital/IOP Recovery Program, and Medical Director of Outpatient Medical Services at Stonington Institute. He has held leadership and management positions, supervised healthcare professionals in various settings, and taught in medical schools to national conferences. He has undergone specialized psychotherapy training in Transference Focused Psychotherapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and treating people with Dissociative Identity Disorder and other chronic dissociative processes. Dr. Chardavoyne's expertise is treating adults who endured significant and sustained childhood trauma that resulted in Substance Use Disorders, Personality Disorders, Dissociative Disorders, Complex PTSD, and Mood Disorders. In 2013, the Connecticut Psychiatric Society awarded him the Roger Coleman Memorial Award Service to Patients for responding after the Sandy Hook tragedy.

Dr. Joe Gerstein retired as a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He spent 30 years in the practice of Internal Medicine and Pain Management. He is one of the founders of SMART Recovery Mutual Aid Network, 501c3 [Self-Management Addiction Recovery Training], an Evidence-based Program now with 3,500 free meetings in 33 countries. As a volunteer, he has facilitated over 3,200 SMART meetings, almost 800 in prisons and jails. He instigated NIDA to fund the development of the 24-meeting Correctional Version of the SMART Recovery Program: "InsideOut," now in use in about 300 prisons and jails globally. This is now available in 12-meeting condensations for jails and reentry programs. Dr. Gerstein authored the chapter on "Alternatives to the 12-Step Programs" in the 2nd Edition of the ASAM TEXTBOOK OF ADDICTION MEDICINE. He is now a Co-Chair of the ASAM SIG on Criminal Justice.

John Chardavoyne, MD

Dr. John Chardavoyne is a Psychiatrist and the Medical Director of Bright Heart Health, a Telehealth organization that offers treatment services to individuals with substance use disorders, psychiatric illness (including eating disorders), and chronic pain. Most recently, he acted as Interim Chief Medical Officer of Stonington Institute, Director of Medical Services at the Stonington Institute Partial Hospital/IOP Recovery Program, and Medical Director of Outpatient Medical Services at Stonington Institute. He has held leadership and management positions, supervised healthcare professionals in various settings, and taught in medical schools to national conferences. He has undergone specialized psychotherapy training in Transference Focused Psychotherapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and treating people with Dissociative Identity Disorder and other chronic dissociative processes. Dr. Chardavoyne's expertise is treating adults who endured significant and sustained childhood trauma that resulted in Substance Use Disorders, Personality Disorders, Dissociative Disorders, Complex PTSD, and Mood Disorders. In 2013, the Connecticut Psychiatric Society awarded him the Roger Coleman Memorial Award Service to Patients for responding after the Sandy Hook tragedy.

Dr. Carolyn McIlree is an Addiction Medicine Physician and Sponsor for the Baltimore Pre-Trial Complex Opioid Treatment Programs. She is board-certified in Addiction Medicine and Public Health & General Preventive Medicine. Dr. McIlree attended college at Stony Brook University and obtained a master’s degree in Psychology, where she studied working memory using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). She earned her medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine and completed residency training in Public Health & General Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland Baltimore with an MPH in Epidemiology. Dr. McIlree served as House Staff Officer for Quality Improvement & Patient Safety while a resident and completed Addiction Medicine Fellowship training at Caron Treatment Centers & Tower Health System's Reading Hospital. Dr. McIlree has an interest in continuous quality improvement techniques to improve health care delivery and is currently pursuing Lean Six Sigma Greenbelt certification. She is closely involved with implementation of House Bill 116 in the Baltimore Pre-Trial Complex, which establishes programs of screening, evaluation, and treatment of Opioid Use Disorder in local correctional facilities.

Debra R. Newman, PA-C, MSPAS, MPH served as the Medical Practitioner for Adult Drug and Mental Health Treatment Courts in Santa Fe County, New Mexico for the over six years, and currently provides training and technical assistance for the NM Department of Therapeutic Justice. She formerly served in this role for the Rio Arriba (NM) Adult Drug and Mental Health Treatment Courts, and the Santa Fe County DWI Court. Debra was a 2017-2018recipient of the PA Foundation/NIDA-CTN Mentored Outreach Award in Treatment Dissemination: “Utilizing Psychiatric PA’s in Drug/Treatment Courts.”

Her passion for addiction medicine began with her association with Project ECHO while employed at a large FQHC in northern NM more than 15 years ago, a region historically plagued with the highest per capita heroin overdose death rate in the nation. Debra worked as the only full-time provider for patients struggling with SUDs.

Debra is the only PA to serve as a Lead Mentor for the Provider Clinical Support System (PCSS and serves as a Co-Editor for ASAM Weekly.

In her current role with Encompass Community Services, a non-profit organization in Santa Cruz, CA that provides services in behavioral health and family andsocial well-being, she is Lead Provider for outpatient SUD services.

Yngvild K. Olsen, MD, MPH, DFASAM graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1997, from the residency training program in internal medicine at Boston Medical Center in 2000, and from the Fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2001. Dr. Olsen also serves as the Medical Director of the Institutes for Behavior Resources Inc/REACH Health Services in Baltimore City. Dr. Olsen currently serves as Vice President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and is a member of the Public Policy Committee. She is the Immediate Past President of the Maryland Society of Addiction Medicine, Immediate Past President of the Maryland Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, and a Board member of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence-MD (NCADD-MD). 

Edwin Salsitz, MD, DFASAM has been an attending physician at Mt. Sinai Beth Israel, Division of Chemical Dependency, in New York City since 1983, and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is the principal investigator of the Methadone Medical Maintenance (office-based methadone maintenance) research project. Dr. Salsitz is certified by the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM), as well as by the Board of Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Disease. He has published and lectures frequently on addiction medicine topics. 

Dr. Salsitz is Curriculum Director for The ASAM Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder Course and is a mentor in the PCSS-MAT mentoring program. He has co-chaired The ASAM Review Course, The ASAM Pain & Addiction: Common Threads Course, The ASAM State of the Art Course in Addiction Medicine and is a reviewer for the Journal of Addiction Medicine. He is the chair of The CO*RE/ASAM Opioid Prescribing: Safe Practice, Changing Lives Course. 

He is a member of the ASAM Medical Education Council and the ASAM CME Committee and is Chair of the New York Society of Addiction Medicine CME and Education Committees. Dr. Salsitz is a member of the medical advisory panel for the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services. He is the recipient of the 2014 ASAM Annual Award and the 2018 ASAM Educator of the Year Award.

Kristin Smith graduated from St. John Fisher’s FNP/DNP program in May 2013. She is a staff clinician and the Program Director of a Nurse Practitioner (NP) Residency Program at Highland Family Medicine, where she provides Medication Assisted Treatment (MATx) in both dedicated suboxone clinics as well as integrated primary care settings. Dr. Smith is also a certified American Academy of HIV Medicine Specialist with experience providing HIV care and Pre/Post-Exposure prophylaxis. Prior to transitioning to her current role, she served as the Clinical Director of an Opioid Overdose Prevention Program, where she became passionate about harm reduction while providing community training on Naloxone, teaching safe injection practices, and providing needle exchange services in collaboration with a team of individuals through Trillium Health.

Bernard Stuetz, PA-C, MA is the Past President of the Society of Physician Assistants in Addiction Medicine and currently acting as Chief Delegate to the American Academy of PAs (AAPA) House of Delegates (HOD). He is also the Director for Federal Affairs. He has been a delegate to the AAPA HOD for 31 years. He was a member of the AAPA Recertification Committee in 2012, during which he recommended changes to the ten-year cycle requirements. As a delegate in the AAPA HOD, he was the lead advocate to change the re-certification cycle from six to ten years. He was the first PA to work in the White House on Health Care Policy from 1993 to 1995. Having practiced Addiction Medicine for 25 years, Mr. Stuetz currently works in an OTP and Buprenorphine practice.

Matt Tierney, APRN is a Nurse Practitioner and a Clinical Professor at the UCSF School of Nursing. He also serves as Clinical Director of Substance Use Treatment and Education for the Office of Population Health at UCSF Health. The focus of his career has been on improving essential addiction treatment delivery locally, regionally, and nationally. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, where he serves on the Expert Panel on Psychiatric-Mental Health and Substance Use. Matt is also President-Elect of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association and represents APNA as a sponsoring member of the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine's Forum of Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders. He is an ASAM member who has been teaching waiver training courses since 2008. He has treated over 1,600 patients with buprenorphine and has worked in licensed Opiate Treatment programs providing all three FDA-approved medications for OUD 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. 

Melissa Weimer, DO, MCR, DFASAM is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. At Yale, she also serves as the Medical Director of the Yale Addiction Medicine Consult Service and Associate Program Director of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program. Dr. Weimer has a clinical and research focus on expanding access to treatment for patients with substance use disorders, particularly in the hospital setting. She also has fellowship training and years of experience in the management of complex pain, particularly for patients with concomitant opioid use disorders.