Latest Addiction Medicine News

Now in its second year, the Yale Conference for Alcohol Research and Education (YCARE) was held on September 30, 2023. Offering a comprehensive agenda of talks, panel discussions, and poster presentations, the all-day event brought together Yale's researchers, clinicians, and other stakeholders under the banner of alcohol research. Bubu Banini, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine (digestive diseases), Yale School of Medicine (YSM), spearheaded the conference, along with co-directors David Fiellin, MD, professor of medicine (general medicine) and emergency medicine, YSM, and public health, Yale School of Public Health; Graeme Mason, PhD, professor of radiology and biomedical imaging and of psychiatry, YSM; and Sherry McKee, PhD, professor of psychiatry, YSM.

The National Institutes of Health and National Institute on Drug Abuse has awarded nearly $7 million to MPIs Tami Sullivan, PhD (Psychiatry and Public Health); E. Jennifer Edelman, MD, MHS (Internal Medicine and Public Health); and Dawn Johnson, PhD (University of Akron Department of Psychology) to study medication for opioid use disorder treatment retention among women who experience intimate partner violence.

A pilot study run by the SEICHE Center at Yale provides direct cash assistance to recently incarcerated people. For Verneisha Snow (above) the intervention is $500 every month, for six months, to each participant — no strings attached. "Luckily, I didn't get to do too much time. But I am a woman with a record. A lot of us have records, but we want to do better in life," Snow said. "And we're not often given those opportunities. We should allow people to grow, we should allow people to change." Snow’s been using her money to rent a music studio to produce hip hop and has close to 60,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Teenagers made up an estimated 20 percent of new cases of HIV infection in the United States in 2020. The actual percentage, however, is likely to be higher because it is known that adolescents are the least likely of any age group to be aware of their HIV status and may unknowingly transmit the virus to others. Only 9 percent of high school students in the United States report ever being tested for HIV.

Three Yale School of Medicine faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, in recognition of work that ranges from ribosome biogenesis to substance use disorder and the health impacts of incarceration.

Yale School of Medicine established an addiction medicine fellowship program for advanced practice providers, including physician assistants and advanced practice registered nurses as part of the Substance Use Skills Training to Advance INtegrated care project.

In their communities, a mobile pharmacy and clinic will serve people with OUD and other substance use disorders who are at risk or living with infectious diseases like HIV.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have renewed a $20 million grant for the Yale Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science (TCORS). The Yale center is led by co-directors Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, PhD, Albert E. Kent Professor of Psychiatry; and Stephanie O’Malley, PhD, Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry.

The Department of Internal Medicine is pleased to highlight the following appointments and promotions to professor of medicine.