Building knowledge in complex care

The UBC Health and the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) partnership continues to provide health professional students with training in substance use and addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to support people who use substances. Through the partnership, UBC Health has increased learning opportunities and resources for both students and practicing professionals.

In 2022/23, UBC Health delivered a substance use education workshop on team-based communication and decreasing substance use stigma, as part of the interprofessional Integrated Curriculum. UBC Health also offered additional opportunities that enrich student learning, such as a discussion with an interprofessional panel on substance use care, a Patient and Community Voices workshop on addressing stigma in the health system to improve patient outcomes, and sponsorship of students to attend the BC Substance Use Conference, which brings people from across the province together to share clinical expertise, lived experiences, and the latest research. These opportunities enabled students to hear from people with lived and living experience, engage in practical scenarios, and gain insights from diverse perspectives in substance use care.

Through the Substance Use and Addiction Lunch & Learn Webinar Series, UBC Health continues to provide accessible, evidence-based, foundational substance use and addiction education with tangible takeaways that can be utilized to improve the care for and treatment of people who use substances. In 2022/23, UBC Health hosted webinars on opioid and stimulant use disorders and care. While the webinar series is geared towards health program instructors and preceptors who supervise students, attendance has included clinicians, UBC faculty and staff, students, community members, and government staff. The high interest and participation demonstrates the importance of substance use and addiction education across not only UBC health program instructors, preceptors, and students but also the community at large.

Strategic Objectives

This work advances the following UBC Health strategic objectives:

• Education innovation: Renew classroom-based and develop practice-based curricula, reinforced by scholarship in health education
• Public and patient engagement: Expand engagement to advance diverse community priorities, enhance learner experiences, and align research activities
• Coordinated responses: Coalesce experts and efforts to further collaborative health education and interdisciplinary research in response to pressing health challenges

Back to Plan in Action

Posted October 23, 2023