Article Excerpt: Only about 10 percent of the 21 million Americans who meet the need for care for an alcohol or drug use disorder receive any form of treatment, and much of the treatment available does not meet standards for evidence-based care. There are many attitudinal and systemic reasons for this treatment gap, including stigma against treating people with addictions and institutional barriers to providing or funding addiction treatment. Another obstacle is the fact that, until now, addiction medicine has not been a recognized area in which physicians can specialize — a fact that has had important implications for the quality and amount of education that medical students receive and that new physicians are given in their residency training for addressing patients with substance use disorders.
Full Article: http://tinyurl.com/hwtpvo5
Article Source: Huffpost Science