Page 24 - Focus March 2018

TREATMENT
At inaugural Leslie and Edward Goldenberg, M.D., Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Lectureship, Delaware HSS Secretary Kara Odom Walker highlights progress and opportunities in building a statewide response to the opioid crisis.
Increased use of medication-assisted treatment and broader cooperation among stakeholders will expand Delawareans’ access to the most effective addiction care,
Kara Odom Walker, M.D., MPH, MSHS, secretary of the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, said Jan. 18 at the inaugural Leslie and Edward Goldenberg, M.D., Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Lectureship.
Speaking at Christiana Hospital’s John H. Ammon Medical Education Center, Dr.
Walker said medication-assisted treatment,
or MAT, is “the best evidence-based therapy to prevent overdoses” but nonetheless remains underused. The medication blunts cravings and give its users the chance to break the cycle of withdrawal and relapse. It is most effective when paired with counseling.
Tapping its potential to treat the thousands of state residents who lack access to care will require seeing addiction as a chronic mental illness, she said. Because it is mediated by biology, sociology and psychology, addiction should be met with a correspondingly broad response: “all points lead to treatment.”
Lectureship emphasizes prevention
Seeing a wider role for health care providers is at the core of the medical philosophy of Dr. Goldenberg, FACC, Christiana Care’s director of preventive cardiology.
“I want doctors to realize that our role goes beyond taking care of the sick,” Dr. Goldenberg said.
Dr. Goldenberg said the lectureship is a way to educate providers and lead them to embrace a wider notion of prevention, health promotion and the importance of social determinants of health. Prevention is at once central to health and one of its most neglected tenets, he said.
Throughout his career in cardiology, Dr. Goldenberg has championed prevention in the hospital, classrooms and the halls of government, said Chief People Officer Neil Jasani, M.D., MBA, FACEP.
“Dr. Goldenberg has been a leader among change agents, a career-long champion of the prevention of illness,” Dr. Jasani said. “He embodies our core values and behaviors and anticipates the needs of others.” C O N T I N U E D
22 CHRISTIANA CARE HEALTH SYSTEM
ALL POINTS LEAD TO