With record numbers of opioid-related deaths in the United States, multi-pronged strategies to improve addiction care and reduce stigma toward substance use disorders (SUDs) are crucial. Stigma remains a significant barrier to care, persisting in both communities and treatment settings. Modern neurobiological approaches have deepened our understanding of addiction, highlighting how genetic and environmental factors contribute to vulnerability or resilience through shared neurobiological pathways. This has shifted the explanatory theories of addiction from a moral failure to a condition influenced by neuroadaptation and biology. This evolving understanding presents an opportunity for educational interventions that utilize these insights to reduce stigma and enhance treatment engagement.

The Overcoming and Addressing Stigma In Substance Use Disorders (OASIS) program addresses this need and uniquely uses neuroscience to counter stigma. Having been presented in multiple North American cities, the program uses principles of adult learning, interactive case seminars, and multimedia to communicate relevant neuroscience topics that help to explain aspects of SUDs to trainees, clinicians, and communities. OASIS aims to translate contemporary neurobiological insights into practical strategies that reduce stigma and improve addiction care and has been shown to reduce stigma across diverse populations of participants. Participants in the OASIS workshops engage in real-time interactive sessions, experiencing firsthand how to implement meaningful anti-stigma initiatives. This workshop will present a brief version of OASIS and is designed to train experts in SUDs to disseminate and adapt this material and associated teaching strategies for their local needs.

• Apply principles of adult learning to the creation of anti-stigma material for trainees, clinical staff, and the broader community.
• Communicate how neuroscience education can play a role in combatting stigma towards substance use disorders.
• Utilize cases to generate neuroscience-based responses to real-world questions posed by people with SUDs and those who care about them.

• Education
• Stigma
• Neuroscience

Jeremy Weleff, DO, Chairperson

          

Dr. Jeremy Weleff is an Instructor and Public Psychiatry Fellow at Yale University School of Medicine. He will soon (July 2024) be Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta and Assistant Professor (Adjunct) at Yale School of Medicine. He completed psychiatry residency training at the Cleveland Clinic and completed both Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship and Public Psychiatry Fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine.  

Ellen Edens, MD, Co-Chair, Presenter

 

Ellen Edens (pronouns she/her) is an addiction psychiatrist and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. She is Lead for the Substance-Related and other Addictive Disorders Program of the VA National Expert Consultative and Specialized Services - Mental Health (NEXCSS-MH) and serves as an associate director of the Yale Addiction Psychiatry fellowship, and co-director of two VA Interprofessional Fellowships: one in Addiction Treatment and one in Health Profession Education. Her clinical expertise is in chronic pain and opioid use, where she is co-director of the primary-care based Opioid Reassessment Clinic at VA Connecticut Healthcare System. 

David Ross, MD, PhD, Presenter

            

Dr. Ross is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Alberta, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and Co-Founder and Executive Director of the National Neuroscience Curriculum Initiative. The primary focus of his scholarly activities is on designing, implementing, and disseminating innovative educational resources.

Justin Young, MD, Presenter

             

PGY-4 Psychiatry Resident @ Yale New Haven Hospital