Leadership Interview: Dr. Kelly Clark, MBA, FASAM

Last fall, there was an election for the new officers of ASAM. Over the course of the next few issues, ASAM Magazine will be profiling the new officers or members of the Board of Directors and asking them about how being a member of ASAM has helped them to better serve their patients and improve their knowledge of addiction medicine.

Dr. Kelly Clark, MBA, FASAM, ASAM’s President-Elect, has been a member of the association for over a decade, having served in a variety of positions at both the chapter and national levels. The positions that she has held include Chair of the Finance Committee, Chair of the Legislative Advocacy Committee, and the Past-President of the Kentucky Society of Addiction Medicine. Dr. Clark is also a founding member of the  which is one of her proudest accomplishments as a member of ASAM, as it shows what dedicated members and staff can accomplish. The PATF was established in order to advocate for patient access to evidence-based, cost-effective medication treatment for opioid dependence.

Dr. Clark became involved in ASAM after ASAM’s current President Dr. Stuart Gitlow encouraged her to join because she was on faculty with addiction psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts. After she joined ASAM, Dr. Don Kurth, FASAM , asked her to help with the Finance Committee and Drs. Lou Baxter, FASAM, and Ken Roy, FASAM, encouraged her to become involved in the Legislative Advocacy Committee. In this spirit, she would like to encourage others to become involved in ASAM at both the national and chapter levels, whether it is through a committee, task force, or participating in meetings of local ASAM chapters.

When asked why she is a member of ASAM, Dr. Clark cited “the advantages of working with my colleague physicians and other health professionals,” and “the opportunity to work with colleagues and staff to advance addiction medicine nationally and (more importantly) in my own community.” She enjoys the opportunity to network in order to better treat her patients using expertise gleaned from her peers, and wants to be able to better advocate for her patients using ASAM resources and relationships.

Over the next five years, Dr. Clark sees addiction medicine becoming increasingly accepted as a part of mainstream medicine, meaning doctors will have additional responsibilities to engage in improving the quality of patient care, working on new payment models and increasing parity for addiction patients. Clark is excited to use her time and energy to advance ASAM’s mission and to advocate for addiction care.

For anyone who is new to addiction medicine, Dr. Clark encourages them to join ASAM and become an active member at both the chapter and national levels. Also, she highly encourages all doctors to network with colleagues to discuss patient care and how to advocate for the treatment of patients. To that end, ASAM offers members message training to teach how to effectively communicate medical expertise and ASAM’s views of addiction treatment. Click here to learn more and take the training.