Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program

Fellows have protected scholarly time, equal to 10% FTE, with faculty support for board preparation, teaching, research and academic writing. This curriculum is integrated with our allied Addiction Psychiatry fellowship, creating a shared learning space for fellows across these programs. 

Faculty Supervision:

• Clinical site: Daily supervision with faculty for outpatient cases; daily rounding for inpatient/consult services, with weekly case conferences
• Psychotherapy: Training in individual and group therapy as well as monthly motivational interviewing sessions that are recorded for fellow review and feedback
• Program Director: Biweekly individual mentorship and career development

Scholarly Work:

• QI curriculum: VUMC-sponsored, GME-wide QI curriculum with the ability to scale a project to meet fellows’ interests
• Scholarly project: One publication-quality project per year; potential projects include a literature review, book chapter, or data-based project, leveraging VUMC resources for data analysis and faculty mentorship
• Writing workshop: Fellows present scholarly projects to faculty round table for feedback, aimed toward submission to a scholarly journal or national meeting
• Observed lectures: Fellows prepare and deliver lectures for a Tele-ECHO educational conference and for the clerkship or residency programs, with feedback from learners and faculty
• Journal club: Fellows present major findings and criticisms of an SUD-focused paper, alternating between landmark and new emerging-evidence literature
• Mentored quality improvement project in partnership with community-based residental treatment center

Fellows' clinical training sites span the SUD levels-of-care spectrum to develop well-rounded clinicians with experience across varied patient populations and degrees of acuity. The Addiction Medicine fellowship works closely with Vanderbilt’s Addiction Psychiatry fellowship training program to provide core clinical experiences within Vanderbilt's Integrated Services for the Treatment of Addiction (VISTA) and community partners with Vanderbilt faculty support. Our training program incorporates individualized experiences designed to develop each fellow’s specialized interests within addiction medicine. Training experiences include:

• Addiction consultation to general medical and surgical inpatient services at Vanderbilt University Adult Hospital (VUAH)
• Medically-supervised withdrawal and inpatient psychiatric stabilization on the specialized Co-Occurring Disorders Unit at Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital (VPH)
• High-acuity outpatient stabilization in the low-barrier, multi-specialty VISTA Bridge Clinic
• Evidence-based group therapy for substance use disorder in the VISTA intensive outpatient program
• Maintenance SUD care in the outpatient interdisciplinary VISTA recovery clinic
• Outpatient SUD treatment for pregnant and postpartum individuals at the VUMC Firefly program
• Outpatient SUD treatment for people living with HIV at the Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic 
• Targeted clinical experiences in inpatient and outpatient chronic pain management
• Elective-based quarter with opportunities for training in the Tobacco Treatment Service at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, supervised individual psychotherapy cases using the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) modality, clinical toxicology, and structured assessment of SUDs in professional populations, and LGBTQ health

Training Sites

Our faculty are comprised of individuals across multiple clinical and academic domains, including Internal Medicine/Pediatrics, Infectious Diseases, Addiction Psychiatry, OB/Gynecology, Pain Medicine, Emergency Medicine, and research partnerships with faculty in the Department of Health Policy. Fellows in our program deliver specialty SUD care within an interdisciplinary and multispecialty team that includes training faculty, advanced practice nursing, psychology, case management, social work and recovery coaching.

VUMC is situated on Vanderbilt University campus located in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee, and includes VUAH, a tertiary care Level 1 Trauma Center with over 1,000 inpatient medical and surgical beds. Our Addiction Consult Service fields more than 1,100 SUD-specific consultations each year across VUAH, with demonstrated reduction in post-consult acute care utilization and marked increases in initiation of agonist medication for opioid use disorder.

VPH is an inpatient psychiatric facility on VUMC’s campus with over 100 beds in subspecialized units. The VISTA Bridge and Recovery Clinics are adjacent to VUMC’s campus in the Hillsboro Village neighborhood, with clinical spaces tailored to SUD population needs.

Populations served at these sites draw from a 65,000-square-mile catchment area stretching across Middle Tennessee, from southern Kentucky to northern Alabama. Fellows care for individuals living in urban and rural settings and medically underserved areas.

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Weekly lectures with a board-preparation focus are augmented by additional specialty topics from active clinical services and research within the Division of Addiction Psychiatry, Vanderbilt Center for Addiction Research and Addiction Medicine faculty. The curriculum emphasizes identification, assessment, diagnosis, and evidence-based treatment of the spectrum of substance-related and addictive disorders, alongside their medical and psychiatric comorbidities.

We accept applicants who have successfully completed training in any American Board of Medical Specialties residency or fellowship program. Completion of an accredited residency program by the start of the fellowship is required for matriculation to this PGY5 fellowship position.

The Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program is designed to meet and exceed the defined ACGME Program Requirements for Graduate Medical Education in Addiction Medicine. The program received initial accreditation in 2018 and re-accreditation in 2021. Physicians who complete our fellowship program are eligible to sit for board examination in addiction medicine through the American Board of Preventative Medicine.

Our program uses ERAS for application submission and the NRMP Match for candidate selection. Our program invites candidates for virtual interviews after applications are reviewed. Interviews are typically held August to September of the application cycle.

Information about the ERAS application process is here

Information about the NRMP Match process is here

Application materials submitted through ERAS should include the following:

• Personal statement describing interests, achievements and career goals within Addiction Medicine

• Standardized data from the applicant’s curriculum vitae
• Current headshot photograph
• USMLE I, II and III scores (or COMLEX equivalents)
• Any applicable information for IMG credentialing (e.g., ECFMG certificate, visa)
• Four (4) letters of recommendation are required; one letter must be from the applicant’s residency Program Director 

If you have questions and are interested in learning more about our program, please contact our Program Coordinator. We want to provide all necessary information as you make the exciting decisions regarding where you will train in Addiction Medicine.

Jasmyne Mitchell
Addiction Medicine Fellowship Training Program Coordinator
jasmyne.mitchell@vumc.org

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