Docs Need Better Training to Treat Opioid Addiction, Congress Told

Physicians need better training in how to manage pain as well as how to treat addiction to opioids, several experts told a congressional committee.

"[We need] to develop better strategies for the management of chronic pain," saidNora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in Bethesda, Md., while testifying Friday at a House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on government efforts to combat the opioid abuse epidemic. "Physicians are forced -- their patients are suffering, they don't know what to do and give an opioid, even though the evidence does not really show us they're effective for chronic pain, but there are not very many alternatives."

Michael Botticelli, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) here, noted that "since time in [graduate medical education] programs dedicated to the identification and treatment of substance use disorders is rare, we've worked with federal partners to develop continuing education programs on substance use, managing pain appropriately, and treating patients using opioids more safely .... [However], a large percentage of prescribers have not availed themselves of this training."