Addiction medicine: a model osteopathic medical school curriculum.

The World Health Organization has identified nicotine, alcohol, and illicit drugs as among the top 10 contributors of morbidity and mortality in the world. Substance use disorders are preventable conditions that are major contributors to poor health, family dysfunction, and various social problems in the United States-problems that have a profound economic impact. The American Osteopathic Academy of Addiction Medicine seeks to promote teaching of addiction medicine at colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs), which-honoring the osteopathic concepts of holistic medicine and disease prevention-are well poised to develop a model addiction medicine curriculum. Educators and students at COMs can use guidelines from Project MAINSTREAM, a core addiction medicine curriculum designed to improve education of health professionals in substance abuse, for developing addiction medicine curricula and for gauging their professional growth. These guidelines should be incorporated into the first 2 years of osteopathic medical students' basic science didactics. The authors encourage the development of addiction medicine courses and curricula at all COMs.

Adverse drug reaction to methotrexate: pharmacogenetic origin.

Recent advances in molecular biology have provided physicians with genetic testing strategies that can be used to predict adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Many ADRs can be linked to single-nucleotide polymorphisms in genes that control aspects of drug disposition. We report a case in which a standard dose of methotrexate resulted in life-threatening mucositis, neutropenia, and thrombocytopenia in a 61-year-old woman. The patient was found to have a genetic anomaly in an enzyme that plays a key role in folate metabolism. Methotrexate is known to deplete folate levels. As data accumulate and genetic testing strategies improve, it should be possible to predict ADRs in individual patients, thereby resulting in better patient care and a reduction in medical expenditures.

Implementation of an osteopathic manipulative medicine clinic at an allopathic teaching hospital: a research-based experience.

Mastery of osteopathic palpatory skills and the skilled delivery of osteopathic manipulative treatment is a life-long venture that demands from practitioners increasingly sophisticated manual skills. Specific receptors and neural networks within the brain allow for the gradual development of refined manual skills that parallel responsive alterations and refinements that develop with repeated experience. During clinical training, most graduates of colleges of osteopathic medicine are not given opportunities to hone their palpatory skills. This is unfortunate because there is an increasing public demand for the nonpharmacologic treatment modalities osteopathic physicians could supply. At Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass, a major teaching affiliate of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, the authors assembled a team of osteopathic and allopathic physicians to found an osteopathic manipulative medicine clinic. In this article, the authors share their experience in the creation of this research-based osteopathic medical clinic.