MD Student, Faculty Among the Winners of COPE Medical Student Curriculum Challenge

BUSM fourth-year medical student Nivetha Saravanan and faculty mentors Sarah O’Connor, MD, Erica Holland, MD, and Kelley Saia, MD, were among eight winners of the Coalition on Physician Education in Substance Use Disorders (COPE) Medical Student Curriculum Challenge: Innovative Learning and Teaching About Substance Use/Opioid Use Disorders.

This Opioid Response Network-funded initiative challenged medical students to utilize their knowledge and creativity to design learning resources related to the development of the knowledge, skills and attitudes critical to providing care to persons with substance use/ opioid use disorders (SUD/OUD).

Medical students working with faculty mentors were encouraged to: create a lesson or unit to support the learning of medical students in the arena of addiction in general SUD/OUD, alcohol, tobacco, stimulants, and co-occurring mental disorders, or to focus on prevention, identification, treatment, recovery support, behavioral approaches, physician resiliency, engagement with community partners, or other topics.

COPE received 36 outstanding submissions from more than 30 medical schools across the country. Each submission was reviewed twice by COPE board members, using a rigorous scoring system based on pre-determined criteria. The highest-scoring submissions received modest monetary reimbursement for their curriculum designs, which will be provided for use to medical schools across the country.

Saravanan and Drs. O’Connor, Holland and Saia were chosen for their project Evidence-based Teaching on Substance Use Disorder and Women’s Heath with a Strong Emphasis on Opioid Use Disorder in Pregnancy.

Congratulations!