Daniel Alford to Receive National Award from American College of Physicians

Daniel AlfordProfessor of Medicine and Assistant Dean of Continuing Medical Education Daniel P. Alford, MD, MPH, FACP, will receive the American College of Physicians (ACP) Award for Distinguished Contributions to Behavioral Medicine. ACP is a national organization of internists. The award will be presented at ACP’s Convocation Ceremony on Thursday, March 30, 2017, at the San Diego Convention Center, where ACP is hosting its annual scientific conference.

Established by ACP’s Board of Regents in 2014, the award recognizes distinguished contributions to the integration of behavioral medicine with traditional medicine. This award is given to an individual who has furthered the care of patients by recognizing the importance of caring for the whole patient, both mind and body.

Alford is also the Director of the Clinical Addiction Research and Education Unit and the Medical Director of the Office-Based Addiction Treatment (OBAT) Program at Boston Medical Center.

He is active locally and nationally teaching physicians about addiction and safe opioid prescribing for chronic pain. With federal and state grants, he created, implemented and evaluated addiction medicine curricula for generalist physicians, including the CRIT program, an online Alcohol Clinical Training curriculum, and a chronic pain and opioid risk management Objective Structure Clinical Exams. He developed and directs the BUSM Safe and Competent Opioid Prescribing Education (SCOPE of Pain) program which has trained over fifty thousand healthcare professionals around the country. He is immediate past-president of the Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA) an organization whose mission is to improve health and well-being through interdisciplinary leadership in substance use education, research, clinical care and policy. In 2011, he was recognized as a Champion of Change by the White House.