The Cooper University Health Care Addiction Medicine Fellowship is a one-year program based in the academic tertiary care center located in Camden, New Jersey. As a tertiary care center located in downtown Camden, Cooper sees the sequelae of substance use daily. Unfortunately, substance use disorder (SUD) treatment has historically been sequestered outside the mainstream health care system, and health care professionals have not adequately been trained to appropriately care for patients with substance use and psychiatric disorders.
To address the lack of evidence-based SUD treatment in the state and to integrate standard of care for SUD into a university health care setting, the Cooper Division of Addiction Medicine and what is now the Cooper Center for Healing was established in 2015. Four years later, our Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited fellowship program was started to train physicians to provide compassionate, evidence-based medical care and comprehensive addiction treatment services for patients with SUD and chemical dependency throughout the continuum of outpatient, inpatient, and chronic care settings. The Cooper University Health Care Addiction Medicine Fellowship will strengthen the philosophy of compassionate care for patients with SUD and continue to infuse evidence-based practices throughout our health care system.
Our addiction medicine fellowship-trained physicians will implement standards driven by national guidelines and evidence-based medicine, while continually working to educate staff, patients and their families, and the community to decrease stigma and improve access to care for patients. Our fellowship-trained physicians will continue to progress the field of addiction medicine through research, education, and advocacy. The program aims to create well-rounded addiction medicine physicians who will become leaders in the community and in the health systems that they practice.