Welcome to the Partners Healthcare Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship website. Substance abuse is a major public health problem.  Approximately 14.6% (1) of the U.S. population experiences a substance use disorder sometime during their lifetime  and the cost of substance abuse to the public is approximately $246 billion per year. At least 20% of patients in general medical facilities and 30% in general psychiatric units have a co-occurring substance use disorder.

Important advances have been made in the addiction field. Neuroscience has advanced our understanding of addiction as a brain disease. New pharmacological and psychosocial treatments have been developed in the last decade and the evidence base for their effectiveness is growing.

We look forward to providing an outstanding learning environment for the professional growth and development of our fellows in the Partners HealthCare Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship. The fellowship provides clinical rotations at multiple Harvard Medical School teaching hospitals including the Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  Fellows engage in a small tutorial style didactic program with many Harvard Medical School faculty as well as faculty members elsewhere in the city of Boston.  Fellows are expected to gain competence and excellence in the practice of addiction psychiatry in public, private and academic settings. Fellows learn evidence based treatments and enjoy increasing opportunities to participate in the development of the field’s knowledge base through research and writing. We place a special emphasis on a fellow’s active participation in their own education and welcome their input not only in formal committees but also informally.

The primary goal of the one year, full-time Partner’s HealthCare Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship is to train outstanding psychiatrists who will become experts in the field of psychiatry.  Graduates of the fellowship may pursue careers in the clinical care of  individuals with substance use disorders and their families, research, education, or a combination of these activities.  In general, the fellowship is a one-year full-time clinical fellowship.  However, beginning in 2007, for fellows who have established a research mentorship within the HMS department, we have been able to offer the fellowship half-time for two years to be complemented by a half-time research position.

(1) Kessler RC, Bergland P, Demler O, Jin R, Merikangas KR, Walters EE: Lifetime Prevalence and Age of Onset Distributions of DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Arch GenPsychiatry 2005;62:592-602.