In his State of the State speech in January, Governor Shumlin declared war on Vermont’s heroin and opioid drug addiction problem. Across the nation and throughout New England there has been a sharp increase in the use of prescribed opioid pain medications, as well as significant increases in the illegal abuse of those medications and heroin.The exact relationship between legitimate prescribing and illegal drug use is not fully understood, but there is no disagreement over the fact that misuse of prescription opioids can lead to addiction and abuse of illegal drugs.Likewise, there is no debate that good management of patients who need prescription opioid pain killers can be very challenging for the health care professionals who prescribe them.
Supporting prescribers with effective training about the best prescribing practices to deter misuse, abuse, and diversion of opioid medications is a critical piece of the solution to the problem of increased narcotic abuse. It is only in recent years that such training has become widely available. In 2012, the Vermont Board of Medical Practice partnered with the Boston University School of Medicine to provide training on safe and effective use of opioid medications in the treatment of chronic pain at events in Burlington and Manchester. The BU School of Medicine has updated and expanded its training on opioid prescribing as part of a national initiative led by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The new program is referred to as Safe and Competent Opioid Prescribing Education, or SCOPE of Pain. See www.scopeofpain.com for program details.
The Vermont Board of Medical Practice is pleased to be able to partner again with BU to bring the SCOPE of Pain training to Vermont. The prescriber training session will take place on Saturday, May 10 at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel & Conference Center. The course will feature some of the nation’s leading experts on opioid analgesics and addiction, and will provide advice on how to effectively assess misuse risk in individual patients, monitor for misuse after prescribing, deal with patients who show signs of misuse, and more. A panel discussion will focus on some Vermont-specific responses, including a new policy on prescribing opioids issued by the Board of Medical Practice in April 2014, programs offered by the Department of Health to treat individuals struggling with addiction, and a new law that will make the drug Naloxone, which can save the life of someone experiencing an overdose, more widely available.