A call for training graduate medical students on harm reduction for people who inject drugs

Abstract

There is a lack of standardized education on topic of harm reduction for graduate medical students. In order to fill this curricular gap, we delivered a two-hour pilot training introducing local community harm reduction organizations and harm reduction ideology and strategies for people who inject drugs to graduate medical students at Boston University. We used pre-post survey design to evaluate attendee demographic characteristics and training efficacy. We matched 29 attendees responses, 69% were first and second year medical students, and found that our training positively reinforced comfort and knowledge surrounding harm reduction ideology, safer injection techniques, and naloxone administration. Delivering trainings covering harm reduction early in graduate medical schools may be beneficial in giving students initial exposure to practical risk mitigation tools they can utilize later in their clinical careers.

Keywords:

• Harm reduction
• medical education
• people who inject drugs

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Dr Gabriel Wishik for championing a harm reduction training at Boston Medical Center, and our community harm reduction organizations: The Phoenix Gym Boston, Boston AHOPE syringe service program, Boston Medical Center Faster Paths clinic and Office based addiction Treatment clinic in this initiative.

Disclosure statement

None of the authors report a conflict of interest. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of Boston Medical Center or any of its academic affiliates.

Author contributions

Raagini Jawa originated the study concept and drafted the manuscript. Nivetha Saranavasan advised on all aspects of the study and contributed to manuscript preparation and revisions. Shana Burrowes conducted statistical analyses and reviewed drafts of the manuscript. Lindsay Demers advised on all aspects of the study and contributed to manuscript preparation and revisions. All authors approved the final version for publication.

Additional information

Funding

This manuscript was supported by the Research in Addiction Medicine Scholars (RAMS) Program, NIDA R25DA033211 and Boston University Clinical HIV/AIDS Research Training Program, NIAID T32AI052074. The funding organization had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication