NEOMED has been awarded a $500,000 grant by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS) to work with the other six medical schools in Ohio to develop a common curriculum on pain management and opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment.
As shown in the photo, members of six of the seven partner schools attended a planning retreat held June 4.
Designed as part of the Ohio State Opioid Response (SOR) Project, the collaborative grant will be developed and implemented across all seven Ohio medical schools. Case Western Reserve University, Ohio University, The Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Toledo and Wright State University are named as sub-awardees.
Impact on students
Stacey Gardner-Buckshaw, Ph.D., M.P.A., co-director and author, says that third-year College of Medicine students will be the first to experience the pain management and medication-assisted treatment (MAT) training as part of Prerequisite to the Clinical Curriculum Boot Camp.
“Students may see pain management and substance use disorder treatment themes in other courses as well, throughout all four years of medical school. This content is already present in many of the medical school courses, although the progress of this grant will enhance and bolster the content, given its relevance to patients in Ohio,” Dr. Gardner-Buckshaw says.
She adds, “Over the next couple of years, there may be an opportunity for students to experience the content during all four years of medical school. Curricular modules will be made available to all Ohio medical schools. However, implementation is at the discretion of the course directors, curriculum committee and Dean’s leadership group.”
Training to improve the clinical workforce
NEOMED was named to develop and implement a train-the-trainer program that will train at least 21 faculty (three per school) during a three-day summit to teach and implement a medical student curriculum in response to the opioid epidemic. This resulting development will be a clinical workforce that improves systems of prevention and treatment for OUD and expand access to OUD medication-assisted treatment (MAT).
Core members of the NEOMED team who are involved in the project include John Boltri, M.D., professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, principal investigator; Stacey Gardner-Buckshaw, Ph.D., M.P.A., co-director and author; Rebecca Fischbein, Ph.D., program evaluator; L. Austin Frederickson, M.D., course director for prerequisite to the clinical curriculum; Russell Spieth, Ph.D., senior consultant, trainer/motivational interviewing; and Ryan Palmer, Ph.D., associate dean for curriculum.