Greg interviews Dr. Martin Klapheke, the Assistant Dean of Medical Education and Professor of Psychiatry at The University of Central Florida. Dr. Klapheke and his team have developed a new opioid-related curriculum to help medical students fully understand how to safely treat substance abuse disorder and prevent the over-prescribing of opioids.
Greg asks Dr. Klapheke about the correlation between over-prescribing and the opioid epidemic. Dr. Klapheke explains that the crisis actually began in the late 90s, when doctors were encouraged to aggressively treat pain, but not given the proper training or support to do so. However, he furthers that some states and the medical community are now working to correct this through new laws, education, and better practices. “…States that have been hit hard by the epidemic, like Ohio and Kentucky, have implemented pain clinic regulations and began requiring clinicians to review the state prescription drug monitoring program data on patients as they prescribe medicine for them. [This is] to make sure the patient isn’t taking medicines from other doctors unbeknownst to the prescribing doctor.” He continues, by stating that while these practices have led to a sharp decrease in opioid prescription, they have not led to a decline in opioid related overdoses.
Listen to the podcast to discover how the curriculum created by Dr. Klapheke and his team aims to not only educate medical students in every specialty on how to deal with this epidemic, but graduates and practicing physicians alike.
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