Collaboration can strengthen the capacity of an organization and enhance performance quality. It serves to widen the scope and global outreach, bringing together multiple minds, different experiences, and varying perspectives and expertise to achieve a unique goal. Improving mental health and care for substance use disorders and addiction is a global challenge. Collaboration is a strong approach to holistically understanding and addressing the different factors affecting issues across several populations. The World Health Organization (2019) emphasizes that through strong collaboration, stronger health can be achieved; it is essential to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 3 – ensuring health and well-being for all ages.
The Addiction Training for Health Professionals (ATHP) program echoes this value and brings together multiple health professionals from across the globe as part of our ATHP Fellows Program. Within the Fellows Program, there are groups that work with each other and our staff to enhance support for substance abuse and addiction patients worldwide. As part of the Fellows Program, ATHP has established groups of Medical Residents, Researchers, and Educationalists who are involved in various facets of the Addiction Training for Health Professionals program. Their roles include helping to create educational content directly, reviewing course components, conducting and presenting research based on substance use and addiction, and exploring innovation in healthcare education.
The following individuals comprise the Residents group of the ATHP Fellows Program:
- Dr. Henry Onyeaka, MBChB, MPH – Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, graduate of the Harvard School of Public Health. Teaching Fellow at Harvard Medical School.
Involved in development of the Courses: Psychiatric Clerkship for Medical Students and War and Public Health. - Dr. Aditya Shah, MD – Texas Institute for Graduate Medical Education and Research.
Involved in development of the Courses: Psychiatric Clerkship for Medical Students and Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT). - Dr. Diana Nguyen, MD – Texas Institute for Graduate Medical Education and Research.
Involved in development of the Psychiatric Clerkship for Medical Students and Dr. Erica Frank’s Research, Healthy Doctor = Healthy Patient. - Dr. Kimberly Evans, MD – Texas Institute for Graduate Medical Education and Research.
Involved in development of the Courses: Psychiatric Clerkship for Medical Students and War and Public Health. She is also a part of Dr. Erica Frank’s Research, Healthy Doctor = Healthy Patient. - Dr. Monthe Kofos, MD – Texas Institute for Graduate Medical Education and Research.
Involved in research entitled “Mental health: meeting information needs for substance use disorders” with Healthcare Information for All (HIFA), and the development of Courses: Naloxone Training, Psychiatric Clerkship for Medical Students, and War and Public Heatlh. He presented a webinar for medical students, discussing the topic of “Acute Methamphetamine Intoxification.” - Dr. Valeria Reynolds, MD, MPH – Virgen de la Luz Hospital, Cuenca, Spain.
Mentors the Addiction Trainee’s Research efforts at Public Health U.
The following individuals comprise the Researcher group of the ATHP Fellows Program:
- Dr. Roman Ivasiy, MD, MPH – Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
Postdoctoral Research Associate at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT.
Dr. Roman Ivasiy won the competitive Edmund S. Muskie Internship Program Award from the US Department of State and was the Coordinator of the “Friendly Doctor” project All-Ukrainian Charitable Organization “FULCRUM”, Kyiv, Ukraine (2016-2019). He is currently involved in assisting ATHP’s Research Director, Dr. Frederick Altice. - Dr. Brandon Maser, MD – The Hospital for Sick Children.
PhD Student at the University of Toronto, thesis title, “Politics, Policy, & Pain Relief: Understanding How Sociopolitical Factors Influence Opioid Policy Reform in Low- and Middle-Income Countries”. Dr. Maser has been involved in extensive research on Policy and Economics Research in Childhood Cancer – Sick Kids Research Institute.
- Dr. Jumanah Essa Hadad, PhD – Bar-Ilan University.
Dr. Essa- Hadad is the Lead Researcher for the RIVER-EU Vaccination Project at Bar-Ilan University. She has several published peer-reviewed papers that focus on lifestyle medicine, web-based health education, and the health of minority and disadvantaged populations. Her present focus is on the effects of lifestyle medicine training on medical students.
- Dr. Magali Collonnaz, MD, MPH, MSc – Ecole de Santé Publique de Nancy.
Dr. Collonnaz is a PhD candidate in epidemiology, Université de Lorraine, France focused on Social Networks and Adolescent Smoking Behavior, and obtained an MPH in Environment and Health Stream at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK. At Public Health U, she is an academic coordinator and presented a webinar focused on Addiction Prevention in Adolescent Populations.
The following individuals comprise the Educationalist group of the ATHP Fellows Program:
- Dr. Jenna Butner, MD – Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT.
Currently pursing an MPH at Yale School of Public Health, Dr. Butner is a Researcher and Educationalist at ATHP. With a key interest in Substance Use Disorders among forced migrants, she is currently collaborating with the US Embassy in Jordan to fill critical gaps in SUD identification, knowledge, prevention, and treatment exist in refugee populations in humanitarian settings. Dr. Butner holds an MD from Ross University School of Medicine and completed her Residency in Family Medicine at Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center. She then went on to complete two Fellowships at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in Hospice and Palliative Medicine, followed by Addiction Medicine and Yale School of Medicine.
- Dr. Carolina Bustillos, MD, DipEd – Psychiatry Residency Applicant, Argentina.
As an Educationalist with ATHP, Dr, Bustillos has played intrinsic roles in supporting the development of Mental Health and Public Health courses and Addiction Programs. She has been very involved in the creation of ATHP’s Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) Training course.
- Felix Emeka Anyiam, MPH, MSc, DSc – Durban University of Technology, South Africa.
As a Ph.D. candidate, Mr. Anyiam recognizes that addiction plays a role in the lives of sex workers and intends to link this in his research. He believes that his work with ATHP could make a real difference by influencing and informing public health policy related to addiction. His research interests revolve around improving the response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other related healthcare challenges in the Niger Delta region in Nigeria via increasing healthcare evidence Based Research practices that work. He is a mentor at Public Health U to trainees in addiction medicine.
- Dr. Hugo Rojas, MD, PgDip, MSc – Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.
Dr. Rojas is pursuing his PhD research on mental health and substance use disorders among seafarers in Canada. He is also passionate about integrating the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve the instructional design process at NextGenU, which can be used to create, Multiple Choice Questions, Student Learning Outcomes, and Case Studies.
- Dr. Pablo Baldiviezo Rodriguez, MD, DipEd – Transdisciplinary Scientific Research, Bolivia.
Dr. Rodriguez is extremely passionate about the future application of emerging technologies in health education, as evidenced by his work in medical 3D printing. He also manages and coordinates the daily functions of the Instructional Design Team and provides critical content review during the development processes of courses.
Alixandria Ali
Author
References
World Health Organization. (2019). Stronger collaboration, better health: global action plan for healthy lives and well-being for all: strengthening collaboration among multilateral organizations to accelerate country progress on the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. World Health Organization.
