The Appalachian Addiction & Prescription Drug Abuse Conference

Pictures from the AAPDAC Conference, WVSAM Chapter President, Dr. Hall, is featured in the top left.
  
The annual Appalachian Addiction & Prescription Drug Abuse Conference was held in Charleston, West Virginia October 23-25, 2014. This was the third conference of its type held since the inception of the licensure board’s three-hour CME Best Practices Prescribing of Controlling Substances required education.

Support for the meeting was provided by the West Virginia State Medical Association, the West Virginia Society of Addiction Medicine, the West Virginia Medical Professionals Health Program (WVMPHP), the West Virginia Board of Medicine, the West Virginia Board of Osteopathic Medicine, the West Virginia Osteopathic Medical Association, and the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (WVDHHR) Bureau for Behavioral Health & Health Facilities. CME joint sponsorship was provided by Charleston Area Medical Center’s Health Education & Research Institute. Attendees earned 15.25 CME credits, inclusive of the three hour board-mandatory CME; those in attendance included 134 physicians, physician assistants, nurses, dentists and social workers. P. Bradley Hall, MD, President, WVSAM and Executive Medical Director, WVMPHP was a featured speaker and the primary planner and organizer of this conference.

Speakers included Kimberly Walsh, Deputy Com. WVDHHR, Jonathan Lee, MD, Kenneth Thompson, MD, Carl Alves, Chapman Sledge, MD, Roland Gray, MD, James Berry, DO, Carl R. Sullivan, III, MD, Allen Mock, MD, James Ferguson, DO, Evan Jenkins, Michael Goff, Edward Eskew, DO, Jimmy Adams, DO, and Denzil Hawkinberry, II, MD.

Topics covered a broad range of relevant issues related to prescription drug abuse, addiction and the paradigm for the opioid misuse epidemic. Some topics included the disease model of addiction, addiction and co-morbid illness, marijuana (the Colorado experience), neonatal abstinence syndrome, pain, proper prescribing, updated epidemiologic statistics and a number of case studies.

Sponsorships by a physician education grant through the WVDHHR provided additional support inclusive of 10 scholarships for early career students and residents. Other organizations in the field were represented, including Aegis Sciences Corporation, Affinity eHealth, Alkermes, Assurex Health, Caron Foundation, Cornerstone of Recovery, CorrLabs PLLC, Cumberland Heights, Elements Behavioral Health, Firstlab, IntegraLabs, Las Vegas Recovery Center, Life Center of Galax, Marworth Treatment Center, Millennium Labs, Mount Regis Center, Orexo US, Inc., Pavillon, Physician Choice Laboratories-PCLS, Pine Grove Behavioral Health, Quest Diagnostics, Ridgeview Institute, Talbott Recovery Campus, The Farley Center at Williamsburg Place, Tennessee Medical Foundation, Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center, West Virginia Health Information Network, WV Medical Insurance Agency, WV Medical Professionals Health Program, WV Society of Addiction Medicine and WV Mutual Insurance Company.

The success of the conference is an excellent example of collaboration and communication among organized medicine within the state and the expertise, passion and support of ASAM and FSPHP membership and relevant others. The conference organizers have been informed it has been awarded a similar grant from the WVDHHR/BBHHF to continue its efforts in the area of physician and provider education for 2015. As always, such support, assistance and guidance is a primary reason the Appalachian Addictions Conference exists as it does today. On behalf of the conference organizers, the providers we serve and West Virginia, I thank you all!

Access to speaker presentations from this meeting are available on the WVSMA website.