Across the US, need for addiction specialists is dire

BOSTON — To the medical students, the patient was a conundrum.

According to his chart, he had residual pain from a leg injury suffered while working on a train track. Now he wanted an opioid stronger than the Percocet he had been prescribed. So why did his urine test positive for two other drugs — cocaine and hydromorphone, a powerful opioid that doctors had not ordered?

It was up to Clark Yin, 29, to figure out what was really going on with Chris MCQ, 58 — as seven other third-year medical students and two instructors watched.

“How are you going to have a conversation around the patient’s positive tox screen results?” asked Dr. Lidya H. Wlasiuk, who teaches addiction awareness and interventions here at Boston University School of Medicine.

Yin threw up his hands. “I have no idea,” he admitted.

Chris MCQ is a fictional case study created by Wlasiuk, brought to life for this class by Ric Mauré, a keyboard player who also works as a standardized patient — trained to represent a real patient, to help medical students practice diagnostic and communication skills. The assignment today: grappling with the delicate art and science of managing a chronic pain patient who might be tipping into a substance use disorder.

How can a doctor win over a patient who fears being judged? How to determine whether the patient’s demand for opioids is a response to dependence or pain?

Addressing these quandaries might seem fundamental in medical training — such patients appear in just about every field, from internal medicine to orthopedics to cardiology. The need for front-line intervention is dire: primary care providers like Wlasiuk, who practices family medicine in a Boston community clinic, routinely encounter these patients but often lack the expertise to prevent, diagnose and treat addiction.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, addiction— whether to tobacco, alcohol or other drugs — is a disease that contributes to 632,000 deaths in the United States annu-

KAYANA SZYMCZAK / THE NEW YORK TIMES Sharon, a patient, becomes emotional as medical student Chioma Anyikwa speaks with her about her opioid addiction recovery during a June 21 checkup visit at Boston Community Health Center. Comprehensive addiction training is rare in the American medical education system.