PCSS Podcast PCSS Projects

Mental health counselor and educational specialist Mr. Raymond Isackila, Ed.S., LPCC, LICDC speaks on the powerful communication technique of motivational interviewing. Mr. Isackila is an educational specialist and Manager of Addiction Recovery Services in the Department of Psychiatry at University Hospitals of Cleveland At University Hospitals. He is regarded as one of the leading authorities on substance use and counseling of chemically dependent patients. He has worked with numerous organizations including the National Football League. 

Medication-assisted treatment is widely accepted treatment for patients with opioid use disorders. Still, patients have many reasons, spoken and unspoken, to be reluctant to start this potentially life-saving treatment. On this episode, Ashley Braun-Gabelman, PhD, discusses the importance of addressing this resistance and why it's important to explore this barrier to treatment head on. Dr. Braun Gabelman is a clinical psychologist in Addiction Recovery Services at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. She specializes in the treatment of substance use and co-occurring disorders including major depression, anxiety disorders, and PTSD.

Today we discuss non-opioid pharmacological management of chronic pain with Dr. Kevin Sevarino. Dr. Sevarino received his Doctorate of Medicine in 1982 from McGill University and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology in 1983 from the University of Connecticut. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University and the University of Connecticut Schools of Medicine. Dr. Sevarino is an active clinician, serving as Medical Director attending for the VA Connecticut Healthcare System Newington Mental Health Firm. He is director of the Addictions and He is Medical Director of SAMHSA’s Providers’ Their Treatment Course for the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry for eight years, and is Vice President for that organization. He is Medical Director of SAMHSA’s Providers' Clinical Support System for Opioid Therapies. His main interests are in treating those with chronic pain and opioid use disorders and in developing new ways to educate primary care providers in safe and responsible opioid prescribing.

Today we will be talking about the use of naltrexone for the treatment of opioid use disorder therapy. Naltrexone is an opioid blocker, or antagonist, that has limited prevalence of use compared with buprenorphine, a partial agonist, and methadone, a long-acting agonist. Joining us for this conversation is Dr. Adam Bisaga, an academic psychiatrist, educator and clinician.  He is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center, and a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He was a recipient of a Career Development Award and a Principal Investigator on grants funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse. His research interests include development of human laboratory and clinical trial models for testing medications to treat substance use disorders, including trials to improve effectiveness of antagonist-based treatment of opioid use disorder. Dr. Bisaga publishes and lectures in the area of addiction research and he is a member of the editorial board of the journal Addiction.

Dr. Lynn Webster is one of the world’s leading pain experts. He is board certified in anesthesiology, pain medicine and addiction medicine. Among his numerous accomplishments, Dr. Webster is the founder of Lifetree Pain Clinic in Utah, has served as a Past President of the American Academy of Pain Medicine and has published more than 150 scientific peer-reviewed journal articles over the course of his career. He is the author of the books The Painful Truth and Avoiding Opioid Abuse While Managing Pain. Dr. Webster will discuss his impression of the current climate of pain medicine and opioid prescription and discuss strategies and important considerations in prescribing short-acting and long-acting opioids.

As a member of the committee that developed the CDC opioid guidelines and a primary care physician who treats chronic pain patients, Dr. Roger Chou is a uniquely situated authority in the conversation on opioid management. In episode one Dr. Chou talked about the guidelines themselves and, in this episode, he rejoins the podcast to discuss his personal experiences in applying the CDC guidelines in challenging patient cases and gives his impressions on sample cases physicians often encounter. Dr. Chou serves as an Associate Professor of Medicine/General Internal Medicine and Geriatrics and Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology at Oregon Health & Science University. He is also Scientific Director of the Oregon Evidence-based Practice Center, funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and an Investigator for the Scientific Resource.