Creating a Curriculum: Training the Next Generation
By Rebecca A. Clay
Pennsylvania’s Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) grant is over, but work is underway to make sure that health care practitioners will be using the approach for generations to come.
With support from SAMHSA’s Medical Residency Program, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and other partners are creating a curriculum that will give medical residents across the state a thorough grounding in SBIRT-related knowledge and skills.
“We’re building the curriculum from the ground up,” explained Project Director Janice Pringle, Ph.D., Director of the Program Evaluation Research Unit at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Pharmacy.
Drawing on the literature, the group is crafting an evidence-based curriculum that is flexible enough to be used across medical specialties. The curriculum’s mix of Web-based and didactic components will also mean that training programs can use it however works best for them. The group is also creating materials that will train “champions” and other faculty in the residency programs in how to use the curriculum.
“If we’re going to have physicians in the future incorporating SBIRT into their daily practice, we need to get them while they’re training,” said Project Co-Director Bill Johnjulio, M.D., Chairman of Family Medicine at UPMC Mercy.
Find out more about SAMHSA’s SBIRT Medical Residency Cooperative Agreements.