Graduate diabetes care? That would be crazy!

~ Jason Schwartz

Yay-its-finally-over-glitter-graphicBill White on the biggest barrier to better addiction treatment in the US. Our acute care (AC) approach:

This AC model works well with acute trauma, and it can play a role for many in addiction recovery initiation and stabilization.  Unfortunately, it does not work well with the treatment of addictions of high severity, complexity and chronicity–patterns that dominate admissions to specialized addiction treatment units.  Brief episodes of crisis intervention do not support the transition from recovery initiation and stabilization through the stages of recovery maintenance and enhanced quality of personal and family life in long-term recovery.

Efforts to transform AC models of intervention into models of sustained recovery management analogou
s to the treatment of other life-threatening chronic health conditions require substantial changes in service practices.  One such critical change is abandonment of the graduation ritual or reframing this ritual as something other than the “end” of treatment. No healthcare provider would think of providing a “graduation” ceremony marking the discharge of patients admitted for crisis care of diabetes, heart disease, asthma, chronic respiratory conditions or chronic pain because such interventions would not constitute the end of care and the service relationship.  Discharging persons from primary addiction treatment should also not signal the end of care.  It is time we altered practices that inadvertently convey this end of care message.

Published by Jason Schwartz

I have been an addiction professional and social worker since 1994. I started blogging in 2005 as the Clinical Director at Dawn Farm. I no longer work at Dawn Farm and am now the Director of Behavioral Medicine at a community hospital, and a lecturer at Eastern Michigan University’s School of Social Work. Views expressed here are my own. Keep in mind that the field, the contexts in which the field operates, and my views have changed over time.

2 thoughts on “Graduate diabetes care? That would be crazy!”

  1. I get the point, but there is a meaning and purpose to graduating from the primary stage of treatment and support: it’s a huge achievement. As long as it’s framed as a celebration of having done that, there is less danger. A bit like the send off great passenger liners got when they left the UK for New York. The journey was only just beginning really, but what a great send off as it started!

    1. For sure. We celebrate all sorts of transitions without implying it’s the end of the road.

      However, in the states most clients transition into a passive referral to mutual aid or a lower level of care.

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