Substance Use and Pain Curriculum Innovation: Establishing a Student-Faculty Partnership for Curricular Change.

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Public Health
• Addiction Medicine

Background:

• The United States faces a severe opioid overdose crisis, with a 21% increase in deaths from 2016 to 2017.
• Harvard Medical School (HMS) established the Substance Use and Pain Curriculum Committee (SUPCC) in 2016 to address this crisis.
• Initial efforts were hampered by insufficient faculty capacity, financial resources, and administrative support for widespread curriculum changes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To restructure the HMS Substance Use and Pain Curriculum Committee (SUPCC) to effectively address the opioid crisis.
• To empower students to lead curricular development, ensuring relevance and addressing faculty workload.
• To expand addiction and pain medicine education with a focus on clinical application and skill-building.

Main Methods:

• Restructured the SUPCC in 2021 with a student-centered committee.
• Implemented student-led curricular development and implementation.
• Focused on clinically relevant teaching and practical skill development opportunities.

Main Results:

• Expanded addiction and pain medicine curriculum to over 30 hours by 2024.
• Developed an opioid use disorder management practicum equivalent to the DEA X-waiver.
• Increased medical student access to naloxone and integrated case-based didactics into clerkships.

Conclusions:

• A longitudinal curriculum across all medical training stages has been established.
• Further integration into clerkship rotations is needed for students to apply substance use and pain education in clinical settings.
• Future work includes incorporating non-opioid substances, providing longitudinal clinical experiences, and developing outcome measurement surveys.