Adolescents and Addiction
Learning Objectives
As a result of participating in this lecture learners should have a working knowledge of the following topics, essential to competency in addiction medicine and identify areas where more study may be needed:
- Evaluation of and treatment of ADHD in adolescents with substance use disorders (this topic was apparently heavily tested last cycle)
- Epidemiology of substance use disorders in teens and young adults including prescription drug use/abuse, include in that any pertinent trends in terms of age of onset, progression, “gateway” issues, peer or cultural-ethnic groups.
- Effect of age on risk for addiction of drugs of abuse
- Office-based screening (scales, if different from adults ideally including a copy in an appendix),
- Treatment needs of children and adolescents highlighting what is evidence-based from what is simply standard of care based on convention/consensus
- Safe prescribing practices as applied to teens and any detox or treatment issues that would be different than those for adults.
Deborah Simkin, MD
Dr. Simkin is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Emory Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry. She completed her Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training at Harvard McLean's Hospital. She was the Chair of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Addiction and Substance Abuse Committee. She is presently on the AACAP Complementary and Integrative Psychiatry Committee. She is the Co-Editor of the Adolescent Section for the ASAM Addiction Medicine textbook. She was the former liaison from AACAP to the American Academy of Pediatric's Substance Abuse Committee. She was the former residency director for the Psychgiatry Department at the University of South Alabama Medical School. She will be taking her Boards for the International Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine and is in private practice in Destin, Florida.
Dr. Simkin receives research funds from Pfizer
Available Credit
- 0.75 AAPA
- 0.75 AMA Category 1
- 0.75 CAADAC