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Featured Items
Medical Professionals Café
10/14/09 and 11/13/09 - An opportunity to engage in conversation over dinner with the Medical Directorof of OASAS, Dr. Steven Kipnis and other OASAS staff. Network with medical professionals...
2009 Addiction Medicine Weekend
11/13-14/09 - OASAS and Albany Medical College present 6th Annual Conference...
What is the Addiction Medicine Unit?
NYS OASAS developed the Addiction Medicine Unit to build a capacity for working with the provider community to integrate addiction medications into clinical behavioral treatment protocols and to work with physicians, their associations and our sister agencies around medical issues as they pertain to healthcare for patients with alcohol and drug dependencies.
Background
As neuroscientists untangle the web of molecular signals that regulate the brain and its susceptibility to drugs of abuse, there are new and ongoing scientific findings. Learning how the human body’s response to synthetic drugs is based on its own neurotransmitter-receptor interactions is lending significant insights into the physiology of addiction. These findings present both great promise and challenges to those with abuse problems, as well as the AOD treatment community. The development of new addiction medicines to work in tandem with, and enhance, good clinical treatment requires clinicians to learn about these new medicines, just as they have had to become familiar with the drugs of abuse.