NIDA's look into the Chief Resident Immersion Training Program

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[Dr. Samet speaking]: NIDA has supported, are bringing together twenty Chief Residents in Internal Medicine and Family Medicine to gain the skills to learn how to go back to their own institutions and work with their residents and their students, to teach them how to manage those patients that have come in that have presented challenges quite frankly.

[Dr. Saitz speaking]: I think that one of the keys is that these are “Chief Residents” and Chief Residents are the leaders in their institution for the residents that are learning what they are going to use in their practice, really for the rest of their careers. And you know, the other thing about what we are giving them is not only the practical piece but I think a shift of attitude. Now some of these folks are of course self-selected, or we’ve selected them, so they have some interest already in the area of addiction. But, what we have found in past years, is that many of them really get the sense that this is a medical illness and that it has a scientific basis and some of them are frankly surprised.