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KEN ZOUCHA, MD, addiction medicine program director: I think we have an outstanding fellowship in Addiction Medicine at Nebraska Medicine. While our fellows are here, they spend time caring for patients in the outpatient setting. They spend time caring for patients in the inpatient setting. They get a chance to see how other organizations within our state are caring for patients with addiction. And they get a chance to see what we do as far as educating students and residents. 

ABE FARHAT, MD: So I'm a family medicine physician. I work primarily in primary care at a local clinic here. And I feel like the fellowship has helped me in a couple of different ways. The first one is that it makes me just a more compassionate and proficient family medicine physician. It makes me more articulate, and makes me better able to navigate those conversations that are sometimes difficult to have with patients about their substance use. And so it just makes me a better primary care provider. I think that's been a big part of my work since I got out into independent practice, has been empowering my colleagues to handle these issues on their own in the primary care world. 

DR. ZOUCHA: 1 out of 10 people has a substance use disorder involving alcohol or opioids, are the ones we think about a lot of times. But we need to do a better job of caring for the folks that live in our state. I think that the fellowship offers the opportunity for a couple of things. 

First, it offers the opportunity to train addiction medicine physicians who can be board certified. And they can provide care to patients. They can provide advocacy. But one of the most important things is they can provide education. They'll never be enough addiction medicine physicians. And so our family medicine docs have to know how to do this. And the way we do that is through education. 

SARA ZACHMAN, MD, 

MPH, assistant professor, department of psychiatry: When I think about what would make a great addiction medicine physician, I think about really a humanist at heart, someone who cares deeply about other people and also has a degree of optimism, sees the good in people and can help them see that through. 

CLAUDIA MOORE, MD, addiction medicine physician: I came from a background in emergency medicine where I will say that on a daily basis, you meet patients that are touched by addiction, either personally or through their families, or are personally or, again, with their families having someone struggle with mental health issues. That's nothing unique to emergency medicine. That is literally every specialty in the house of medicine, has patients who have addiction, substance use, dependency issues, mental health issues of all kinds, ranging from mild to the most severe. 

The fellowship really attempts to recognize this, respect it, and make sure that as we're doing our training, we are cognizant of the backgrounds our fellows come from, but also making sure that they leave with the fluency in addiction care and mental health care, to be able to properly take care of whoever they run into. 

DR. FARHAT: Probably the biggest ways it's affected me personally it's also one of just the most fulfilling parts of my day, treating people with addiction. Feels really good to give people their lives back. 

MELISSA O'DELL, MD, assistant professor and clinician: I'm a lifelong Nebraskan in Omaha. And when I think about where you go, when you want to get the best of the best care, I think Nebraska Medicine, UNMC. Is that biased? Probably. I also come from a family of UNMC physicians, so I'm sure that factored in. But that was my assumption that this is where you go when you really want top-notch training and top-notch patient care. 

And, for me personally, I love the city of Omaha, and I think it's a great place to raise a family. There's nowhere else I'd rather be raising my children and living my life than Omaha. And it was a good fit for me from that standpoint, which I think is an underappreciated aspect of our program, is how great Omaha is as a place to live. 

DR. ZOUCHA: The fellows who have been in our program have done several things as they've left. We have two fellows that are practicing family medicine. And one of those that a third of his practice involves now caring for patients with substance use disorders. One of our fellows is one of our faculty members. 

But all three of them are now considered experts in their field and considered experts in their practices, and are able to improve how their whole practice cares for patients with addiction. And that's what I really think our fellowship offers, is the ability for somebody to walk away out of this fellowship, become board certified, and become that expert in treating patients with substance use disorder in whatever setting they choose from that point forward. 

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