The Creation of an Addiction Nursing Fellowship Program for Registered Nurses: A Unique Approach to Enhancing the Addiction-Treatment Workforce

Abstract

In 2020, Boston Medical Center and the Grayken Center for Addiction launched an addiction nursing fellowship to enhance registered nurses’ knowledge and skills related to the care of patients with substance use disorders and to improve patient experience and outcomes. This paper describes the development and essential components of this innovative fellowship, to our knowledge the first of its kind in the United States, with the goal of facilitating replication in other hospital settings.

Addiction Physician Specialty Training: How Does the USA Compare with Europe?

“…Hence, the pipeline to growing the specialty addiction physician workforce is long. Importantly, there are emerging programs that train nurse practitioners and physician assistants in addiction, which hold promise both to diversify the addiction medicine workforce and meet the treatment need across many US communities [11].…”

“…Here, I compare these findings with US physician specialty addiction training and suggest implications. US addiction physicians commonly work as part of interprofessional teams (e.g., with nurses [11], social workers [8], psychologists [9]) and they contribute to clinical care, research, education, and advocacy.…”