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Curriculum

Rotations

The addiction fellow's time is spent equally at sites associated with UC Health and the Cincinnati Veterans Affairs Medical Center, ensuring adequate exposure to a wide array of demographic populations (adolescents, women, pregnancy, etc.). Very importantly, we ensure that several of these clinics (co-existing disorders and outpatient rehabilitation, buprenorphine maintenance, methadone maintenance) last the majority of the year of training, to ensure a longitudinal exposure to the patient and her or his addiction-related illness course.

Overall, rotations include training in:

  • Adolescent Addiction Clinic and day hospitalization
  • Detoxification (outpatient and inpatient)
  • Residential Addiction Rehabilitation  
  • Buprenorphine Maintenance Clinic
  • Methadone Maintenance Clinic
  • Co-Existing Psychiatric Disorders Clinic
  • Addiction Medicine/Psychiatry Consultation-Liaison Service
  • Perinatal Clinic
  • Nicotine Clinic
  • Addiction Specialty Psychotherapy (Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive-Behavioral, Relapse Prevention, etc)
  • Co-Existing Chronic Pain and Addiction Clinic

Addiction-Specific Psychotherapy Training

The American College of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires Addiction Psychiatry Fellowships to provide experience in “using the various psychotherapeutic modalities involved in the ongoing management of the chronic substance using patient, including individual psychotherapies, couples therapy, family therapy, group therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, and relapse prevention therapy.” Moreover, the ACGME outlines supportive and psychodynamically-oriented approaches as being valued in training as well.

The University of Cincinnati (UC) Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship trains only graduates of 4-year ACGME-accredited psychiatry residencies, wherein formalized psychotherapy training and experience is provided. The UC Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship extends this to include addiction-specific training.

Such therapy is generally characterized as brief, focal (choosing a specific focus to work on in the therapy), and time-limited (typically no more than 8-12 sessions in duration). Fellows screen patients for such therapy, conduct therapy, and seek supervision on the course of therapy from a designated psychotherapy supervisor. Supervision may involve recording therapy sessions for later use in supervision. Fellows complete readings as assigned by the psychotherapy supervisors. Fellows are required to perform a certain number of therapies, as outlined in her/his Procedure Log via MedHub software.

Moreover, Cincinnati is home to one of the very top psychoanalytic training programs in the country, the Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. Please visit their website to learn more about optional training opportunities including one, two, and five year psychotherapy training experiences.

Addiction Psychiatry Training Sites

Adolescent Substance Abuse Program, Inc.
Cincinnati Veterans Affairs Medical Center (CVAMC)
UC Health and UC Physicians Company, LLC - Opioid Treatment Program
UC Health Maternal-Fetal Medicine

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In summary, this fellowship provides a robust scope and depth of addiction specific services including:

  • Inpatient and walk-in outpatient detoxification services
  • Outpatient and residential rehabilitation services with interdisciplinary staffing
  • Clinics specializing in methadone and buprenorphine maintenance with interdisciplinary staffing
  • Tobacco/nicotine specialty clinic
  • Gambling services
  • Co-existing psychiatric disorders specialty clinics, with interdisciplinary staffing
  • Co-morbid PTSD and addiction specialty clinic, with interdisciplinary staffing
  • Contingency Management Clinics for stimulant and cannabis use disorders
  • Opioid overdose education and naloxone distribution services
  • Addiction-specific consultation-liaison services
  • Veterans drug court services with addiction specialty care

Evidence-based addiction specific psychotherapies including:

  • Motivational Interviewing/Motivational Enhancement Therapy
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
  • Contingency management
  • Behavioral Couples Therapy
  • Mindfulness Based Therapy
  • Seeking Safety group therapy
  • Video-teleconference treatment to rural or logistically challenged patients
  • Secure electronic messaging for patients

Didactics

Didactic Curriculum includes a large number of lectures within the areas of General Addiction Psychiatry/Medicine, Neurobiology and Psychopharmacology, Therapeutic Modalities, Special Populations-Special Needs, Administrative Issues and Research.

Additional supervisory processes

  • Weekly meetings with the Program Director
  • Structured written feedback on rotations
  • 360 Degree Feedback Sessions from multidisciplinary staff and patients
  • Clinical Skills Examinations with live patients, evaluation by physicians Board Certified in Addiction Psychiatry
  • Scholarly Project
  • Addiction-specific psychotherapy training
  • Procedure Log

Fellow Scholarly Activities

It is a requirement that Fellows participate in scholarly activities. The Fellow's weekly schedule is set well below the 80 hour maximum to ensure adequate time for activities such as Journal Club, Grand Rounds, and authoring medical articles on addiction psychiatry topics or traditional research.

Fellows are expected to either create their own scholarly project or participate in formal research activities. Either approach affords strengthening the Fellow's knowledge in a specific subject, raising her/his confidence in publishing in the peer-reviewed medical literature, and affords opportunities to deepen her/his teaching and public speaking experiences. Scholarly activity may include authoring and preparing for publication a medical article, or presenting at Grand Rounds. Co-authorship is further encouraged, as this makes for an easier learning curve, enhances fellow-faculty collaboration and team-based learning, and better ensures the paper will be successful towards publication. Regarding formal research activities, this may include involvement in faculty members' existing research grants/contracts, or pursuing their own research question/project under faculty supervision/ mentorship.

In our experience, due to the clinical demands of this one-year fellowship, the latter is only feasible if the Fellow intends to remain with the University of Cincinnati or Cincinnati VAMC after their Fellowship training.

Addiction Sciences Journal Club
The Addiction Sciences Division provides an addiction-specific journal club every other month. An original research paper is presented by a fellow or other trainee, with discussion facilitated by a selected faculty member. Here, Fellows are paired with a faculty discussant to enhance their learning on how to review scientific papers, interpret statistics and conclusions, and present and discuss relevant opinions with the audience in attendance. This is open to all medical students, residents, fellows, and UC, VA, and CCHMC staff who wish to become more familiar with the advanced literature in substance use and addiction related disorders. CME's and CEU's as well as lunch are provided free of charge.

Cincinnati Psychoanalytic Institute (optional)
This is a non-profit educational institution that offers post-graduate training to mental health professionals - one of few in the U.S. The curriculum is geared to mental health professionals who want to become analysts and to professionals in the fields such as social work, counseling, psychology and pastoral care who want to expand their skills to help the people they serve. This is an optional add-on experience that only a well-qualified fellow may pursue.

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PO Box 670559
Cincinnati, OH 45267-0559