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Representatives from the Mid-South Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program (MSAM) provided a Grand Rounds presentation in October to the Graduate Medical Education Department at BMH-NM. Dr. Shawn Hamm, who serves as program director of the fellowship, and Dr. Jared Matthews, a current fellow in the program, traveled from Memphis to provide training and updates in their field of specialty. 

Dr. Hamm provided an overview of the community need for this type of advanced care and details about the consult service provided by the program faculty and its trainees. In a 12-month period ending in April 2021, there were 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the United States, which was a 28.5% increase from the previous 12-month period of April 2019 – April 2020. From 2019-2020, Shelby County, Tennessee, saw a 22% increase in overdose-related deaths and a 68% increase of opioid-related ED visits, mostly from people aged 21-39 years old. 

Dr. Matthews followed with a presentation titled “Pain Management for Patients on Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT)." He explained what MAT is and provided details on what medications are available and used in treatment of alcohol use and opioid use disorders. 

The addiction medicine fellowship program is a collaboration between Baptist Memorial Hospital and Vertava Health. The organizations work to promote the disease model of addiction, raise awareness of substance use disorder, and integrate evidence-based addiction treatment throughout BMHCC’s outpatient clinics, emergency departments, and inpatient units.