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Texas FQHC develops integrative model to help patients with pain
The COVID-19 pandemic and challenges with providing comprehensive pain care have not stopped Texas physician Sharad Kohli, MD, a family physician in central Texas.
“Not all of our 18,000 uninsured and underinsured patients have debilitating chronic pain,” said Dr. Kohli. “But we recognized a need and developed a comprehensive, integrative pain management model that can help all of our patients with pain.”
Read more about Dr. Kohli’s efforts to provide individualized pain care for his clinic’s 18,000 patients.
Emphasizing medical student and physician mental health in the curricula
If there is one takeaway pearl that Ruchi Fitzgerald, MD, hopes her students and residents will receive during their rotations, it is that treatment saves lives for those with a substance use disorder (SUD), depression, anxiety or other stigma-laden conditions–including within the medical profession.
“Paradoxically, the general public probably has an easier time accepting treatment than those within the practice of medicine,” said Dr. Fitzgerald. “Medical school and residency already put incredible pressure on early-career physicians, and that can be extremely frightening–and in far too many situations, we see and hear of people dying by suicide. It’s heartbreaking.”
Read more about how and why Dr. Fitzgerald helped start a substance use disorder curricula at Rush University in Chicago, where she is an assistant professor in the departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Rush University, as well as the associate program director of the Rush Addiction Medicine Fellowship.
