NIDA's Science Behind Addiction: Yale emergency care and addiction medicine physician, researcher, and advocate Dr. Gail D’Onofrio and NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow discuss COVID-19, substance use disorder and emergency room care.
Video length: :59
Transcript
[Dr. Volkow speaking]
Based on the data that we currently have that shows such a large effect of medications like, buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone. Is there anything else that is needed to document how powerful these treatments are? Specifically, in an emergency department setting.
[Dr. Gail D’Onofrio speaking]
In my opinion, no. What do you need to know? We already know that if you're not in treatment you die. Right? We already know 5% are going to die in one year. I don't need to tell people that opiate agonist treatment works, because I just can give them a litany of proper reviews. I just need to tell them that, yes, you could do it, right. It's possible. I'll help you through it. So, I tell everyone, I used to give my phone number to everyone. But now I just say, all of my doctors at Yale New Haven Hospital have a waiver. You can call up our ED 24 hours a day and get a doctor who knows what they're doing. And they'll just help you.