Brian Fuehrlein, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry, has been chosen to receive a 2025 Pillar of Excellence Award from the Addiction Policy Forum, a national nonprofit that works to eliminate addiction.
The Pillar of Excellence Awards honor four leaders whose work is transforming the landscape of addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery and criminal justice reform across the United States.
Fuehrlein will be honored December 2 at the Addiction Policy Forum’s Annual Leadership Awards Reception. Fellow award recipients include Dr. Valerie Earnshaw from the University of Delaware; Deltrin Kimbro from Let’s Get Real Inc., Living Water Support, Recovery Group; and Director Cam Ward from the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles.
Fuehrlein is director of Acute Care Psychiatry at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and director of the psychiatric emergency room, a unit that cares for the most vulnerable veterans, who often have chronic mental illness and substance use disorders. The unit was one of the first in the country to initiate medications for opioid use disorder in an emergency room setting and arrange close outpatient follow-up.
Fuehrlein also manages complicated alcohol withdrawal, psychosis, mania, suicidality, and grave disability in complex veterans.
Additionally, he is the chief mental health consultant for the National Emergency Medicine Office at VA Central Office. In that role, he works to improve emergency care for veterans across the VA system. He serves on and leads national committees, provides field support and consultation, and is the national subject matter expert on emergency psychiatry issues involving veteran care.
In addition to his clinical and administrative duties, Fuehrlein engages in research and writing and serves as a section editor for the journals Current Addiction Reports and Frontiers in Public Health as well as editing the psychiatry section of the Encyclopedia of Neurological Sciences. He also serves on the Addiction Policy Forum’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Fuehrlein has a strong passion for medical education, particularly in the field of addiction psychiatry, and actively serves on multiple local and national committees to advance this work. At YSM he is a longitudinal coach for medical students and director of electives and sub-internships for the Yale Department of Psychiatry. He works with students, residents, and other faculty members, where he teaches addiction as a health condition.