There is an age-old debate over alcoholism: Is the problem in
the sufferer’s head, or is it a physical disease, one that needs
continuing medical treatment in much the same way as, say, diabetes
or epilepsy?
Increasingly, the medical establishment is putting its weight
behind the latter diagnosis. In the latest evidence, 10 medical
schools have just introduced the first accredited residency
programs in addiction medicine, where doctors who have completed
medical school and a primary residency will be able to spend a year
studying the relationship between addiction and brain
chemistry.
“This is a first step toward bringing recognition,
respectability and rigor to addiction medicine,” said David
Withers, who oversees the new residency program at the Marworth
Alcohol and Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in Waverly,
Pa.
The goal of the residency programs, which started July 1 with 20
students at the various schools, is to establish addiction medicine
as a standard specialty along the lines of pediatrics, oncology or
dermatology. The residents will treat patients with a range of
addictions — to alcohol, drugs, prescription medicines, nicotine
and more — and study the brain chemistry involved as well as the
role of heredity.
The rethinking of addiction began about 15 years ago, when
researchers discovered through high-resonance imaging that drug
addiction resulted in actual physical changes to the brain.
Armed with that understanding, “the management of folks with
addiction becomes very much like the management of other chronic
diseases, such as asthma, hypertension or diabetes,” said Dr.
Daniel Alford, who oversees the program at Boston University
Medical Center. “It’s hard necessarily to cure people, but you can
certainly manage the problem to the point where they are able to
function” through a combination of pharmaceuticals and therapy.
Schools offering the one-year residency include St.
Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York, the University of Maryland
Medical System, the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and
Boston University Medical Center.
The new accreditation comes courtesy of the American Board of
Addiction Medicine.
