Associate Professor, Medical Director, Addiction Provider
Thomas Jefferson University
My interest in assisting patients with opioid and other substance use disorders (OUD/SUD) stems from a variety of experiences in my life. Going to medical school in Detroit, MI and having residency training in Ypsilanti, MI and Flint, MI gave me wide eyed and hands on exposure to the damage OUD/SUD can have on patients, their families and their communities. This has only expanded having come to work in Philadelphia, PA, a city steeped in the sequelae of the overdose crisis. Having little research background, I immersed myself in developing evidence-based tools to help patients dealing with these diseases. I have experience in designing practical solutions for patients presenting to the ED with complaints related to OUD/SUD, including provision of and induction with medication assisted therapy/medications for opioid use disorder (MAT/MOUD), dispensing of naloxone, drug testing strips and other harm reduction tools from the ED, and developing relationships with community partners to provide warm handoff for patients to recovery services. Current research foci are how peer, or certified (peer) recovery specialists (CRS), function in the emergency department and hospital. These individuals with lived experience, as well as a much more holistic understanding of the recovery landscape, engage patients about recovery and refer them to services from the hospital, connecting patients at times of significant motivation. Through a recurring grant fund through the Philadelphia Department of Health, CRS are located in 5 Jefferson Hospitals and have engaged more than ten thousand patients while in the hospital. Additionally, we have published the first large cohort of individuals treated for opioid withdrawal in the era of fentanyl/xylazine (Tranq Dope, see peer reviewed reference #3). We continue to refine our withdrawal pathway and are publishing additional work assessing the impact of these treatments of long-term patient recovery, cardiac outcomes and the influence of a continuously changing drug supply.
