Rotations and Curriculum

Facilities

All but one required rotation will take place at either the St. Elizabeth Hospital Youngstown campus or Meridian Healthcare facility. 

St. Elizabeth is a 400-bed tertiary care, level 1 trauma center community hospital. It is the largest hospital between the cities of Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Several rotations including scholarly activity during the first month and hospital consultation will take place in the main hospital building. Fellowship continuity clinic and special populations care will occur in the newly renovated outpatient clinic up the street. Pain medicine will occur in the nearby outpatient and surgery center in the city of Howland, a 15- to 20-minute car trip from the main hospital. 

A significant block of rotations will take place at Meridian Healthcare. Meridian is an integrated behavioral and primary healthcare organization with close to 50 years of high-quality service delivery throughout Youngstown and northeast Ohio. Meridian provides a broad spectrum of care for those with substance use disorders including inpatient detox, residential care, IOP and methadone management for those in need with opioid use disorder. 

Fellows will spend one month commuting to Akron Children’s Hospital, ranked among the best children's hospitals in the country, in order to have the opportunity to work with one the few programs in northeast Ohio that offer adolescent SUD treatment. Fellows will work exclusively in the ambulatory clinics seeing outpatients and participating in the IOP program. 

Required Rotations

Site Locations 

• Site 1: Meridian Healthcare
• Site 2: Mercy Health—St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital
• Site 3: Akron Children’s Hospital
• Site 4: Mahoning County Municipal Court

Rotation Abbreviations

• Adult IOP Program – Adult Intensive Outpatient Program
• MAT Clinic – Medically Assisted Therapy Clinic
• Child/Adol OP/IP Program – Child/Adolescent Outpatient/Intensive Outpatient Program

Potential elective options include: Drug Court, SBIRT(Screening Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment) Program, Dental Clinic or additional experience in any core area.

The fellows' continuity clinic will occur weekly during every rotation.

Didactics

Fellows participate in weekly didactic lectures, journal club and mock board review question-and-answer sessions intended to not only prepare fellows for their written boards but to spark discussion related to all aspects of the origin, assessment and treatment of SUD’s.

Lectures will address the complex interplay genetic and environmental influences have on the development and manifestation of all types SUD’s as well as their most up-to-date treatments, and their natural course with and without treatment. This will include case-based, weekly journal club led by fellows and a review of the most up-to-date data available related to SUDs. 

Research and Scholarly Activity

Program faculty are committed to scholarly activity. As stated, the first month of the fellowship will be committed to this including the development of a year-long scholarly/research project. All fellows will complete the CDC’s “Principles of Epidemiology and Public Health Practice” including each chapter’s self-assessment exam. Certificate of completion is available from the CDC upon coursework completion.

Simulation

In an effort to expose fellows to unique clinical situations and teach them the principles of motivational interviewing, our addiction medicine fellowship uses Kognito. Kognito is an evidence-based role-play simulation which enables health professionals to lead real-life conversations that improve social, emotional and physical health on topics as diverse as opioid use disorder (OUD) and medication-assisted treatment (MAT) to improving team members ability to have a professional conversation with a person who identifies as LGBTQ.