Compassion on Call: My Journey Integrating Addiction Medicine into Rural Emergency Medicine
Understanding a New Kind of Emergency For most of my career, I associated emergency medicine with heart attacks, trauma, strokes, and acute crises that needed immediate interventions. But over the last decade—especially in rural emergency departments—something changed. The emergencies didn’t stop, but another crisis started showing up more and more: opioid addiction. At first, it […]
The Emergency Department as a Lifeline: Why MAT Should Begin at First Contact
The Moment That Changed My Perspective There was a moment, not too long ago, that sticks with me. A young man came into the emergency department—disheveled, anxious, sweating. He was in withdrawal. He had overdosed the week before, and this time, he said he wanted help. He wasn’t combative or angry. He was just tired—of […]