TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The University of Alabama will host a training course May 12 for clinicians who prescribe opioid medications.
The course, “Clinical Challenges in Opioid Prescribing: Balancing Safety and Efficacy,” is funded by and will use materials from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Continuing education will be provided.
The training course will assist clinicians in preventing adverse patient outcomes by teaching clinicians how to identify candidates for opioid therapy, how to monitor patient responses and how to better recognize problematic behaviors.
Efforts are underway nationwide to stem opioid abuse. Unintentional overdose deaths from prescription painkillers nearly quadrupled from 1999 to 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The training course will be from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Capstone College of Nursing, classroom 1008, on UA’s campus (650 University Boulevard East, Tuscaloosa). The course is being jointly hosted by UA’s Capstone College of Nursing, School of Social Work and College of Community Health Sciences.
The speakers are Dr. Jacqueline Tulsky, emeritus professor of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco in the HIV/AIDS Division at San Francisco General Hospital; and Dr. Stephen Wyatt, medical director of Addiction Medicine/Behavioral Health Service Line at Carolinas HealthCare System in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The training course is free, but registration is required. Registration can be completed online at https://www.regonline.com/opioidcme2016-Alabama.
For more information, contact Dawn Hodo at 205/348-0093 or dawn@ua.edu.
Contact
Kim Eaton, UA media relations, 808-640-5912, kkeaton@ur.ua.edu
Source
Leslie Zganjar, College of Community Health Sciences director of communications, 205/348-3079, lzganjar@ua.edu