"Medical education needs to catch stirring to marijuana legislation," said senior author Laura Jean Bierut, MD, the Alumni Endowed Professor of chemical analysis at Washington academe and a member of the National instructive Council upon Drug Abuse. "Physicians in training need to know the facilitate and drawbacks allied in the manner of medical marijuana in view of that they know subsequent to or if, and to whom, to prescribe the drug."
Doctors are creature asked to lead patients through areas in which most have no training, she explained.
The research team, led by first author Anastasia B. Evanoff, sent surveys to medical scholarly curriculum deans at 172 medical schools in North America, including 31 that specialize in osteopathic medicine, and conventional 101 replies. Two-thirds (66.7 percent) reported that their graduates were not prepared to prescribe medical marijuana. A quarter of deans said their trainees weren't even equipped to reply questions very nearly medical marijuana.
The researchers also surveyed 258 residents and fellows who earned their medical degrees from schools on the country back coming to Washington university circles learned of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis to unchangeable their training. nearly 90 percent felt they weren't prepared to prescribe medical marijuana, and 85 percent said they had not conventional any education about medical marijuana during their epoch at medical schools or in residency programs throughout the country.
Using data from the AAMC database, the researchers found that solitary 9 percent of medical schools had reported teaching their students roughly medical marijuana.
"As a unconventional physician, it worries me," said Evanoff, a third-year medical student. "We craving to know how to reply questions not quite medical marijuana's risks and benefits, but there is a fundamental mismatch between own up laws involving marijuana and the education physicians-in-training receive at medical schools throughout the country."
However, several states-Missouri along with them-have not legalized medical marijuana, and published studies virtually potential risks and serve of medical marijuana often are contradictory. as a result what are schools to teach?
"You residence the controversy," said co-investigator Carolyn Dufault, PhD, co-conspirator dean for education at Washington university and an researcher in medicine. "You say, 'This is what we know,' and you lead students to the points of controversy. You with tapering off out where there may be research opportunities."
The authors argue that as more states legalize marijuana for medical and recreational use, doctors need to have at least sufficient training to reply patients' questions.
"More medical students are now getting better training just about opioids, for example," said Evanoff. "We talk just about how those drugs can show all organ system medical marijuana card in the body, and we learn how to discuss the risks and serve afterward patients.