Addiction Medicine Rounds: Fourth Annual Schottenfeld Lecture: "The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin, Twenty Years Later: An Opioid Crisis, Lessons Learned, Opportunities Not to Miss"

The Yale Program in Addiction Medicine is pleased to welcome Dr. Art Van Zee, MD, as speaker for September Addiction Medicine Rounds and the 4th Annual Schottenfeld Lecture

Topic: "The Promotion & Marketing of OxyContin, Twenty Years Later: An Opioid Crisis, Lessons Learned, Opportunities Not to Miss"

Learning Objectives:

1. Gain an understanding of the opioid crisis in the early years in Central Appalachia.
2. Gain an understanding of the promotion and marketing of OxyContin and the role it played in fueling the opioid crisis in the country.
3. Consider a perspective on possible public policy changes that could prevent a similar tragedy in the future.

Dr. Art Van Zee is an internist and primary care physician who practices in rural St. Charles, Virginia. In the early 2000’s, a tsunami of opioid use disorder came to countless families and communities in the Central Appalachian region. Having had very little training and skills in addiction medicine at that time, Dr. Van Zee reached out to Yale and Dr. Richard Schottenfeld as part of his community’s response to the burgeoning regional epidemic. He and his wife, Sue Ella Kobak, a lawyer, were instrumental in mounting a response to Purdue Pharma’s marketing efforts in Appalachia and nationally. Dr. Van Zee added Addiction Medicine to his family practice, providing an essential service to his community and inspiring numerous physicians nationally. Dr. Van Zee’s efforts are catalogued in books including a book by New York Times writer, Barry Meir’s Painkiller: A “Wonder” Drugs Trail of Addiction and Death (originally published in 2003, republished in 2018), and Beth Macy’s Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America.

The Schottenfeld Lecture is held each September to acknowledge the contributions of our colleague, Richard Schottenfeld, MD, to the integration of medical care and addiction treatment. Dr. Schottenfeld, the founding Director of the Yale Addiction Psychiatry Residency Program is an experienced clinician, teacher and clinical researcher whose work has focused on improving the efficacy, accessibility, and availability of addiction treatment in the United States and internationally. He currently serves at the Chair of Psychiatry at Howard School of Medicine. In his role as a Professor of Psychiatry at Yale, he was instrumental in supporting and mentoring numerous clinicians and researchers locally and internationally. His work helped lay the foundation for the Yale Program in Addiction Medicine and we are delighted to honor his legacy with the annual Schottenfeld Lecture.

Addiction Medicine Rounds are CME accredited. Each session will be assigned 1 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM.