Addiction Medicine Fellowship (ACGME)

Welcome to the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Addiction Medicine Fellowship

The Kaiser Permanente Northern California Addiction Medicine Fellowship, established in 2017, is ACGME-accredited and currently offers a one-year, full-time clinical track for two fellows. Our program is unique in being nested within an integrated health care system that provides prevention, assessment, and treatment of substance use disorders for more than 3 million Kaiser Permanente Northern California members. We offer a busy training environment with 1:1 mentorship by board-certified addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry faculty within multidisciplinary treatment teams. Fellows rotate through hospital addiction consultation services, comprehensive addiction rehabilitation programs, bridge clinics, outpatient programs, continuity addiction clinics, county drug courts, and other enriching rotations, both within and outside the Kaiser Permanente system. This training equips fellows to become leaders, teachers, and expert clinicians in the expanding medical specialty of Addiction Medicine.

• Applications for fellowships beginning July must be submitted through ERAS. Please refer to the ERAS website for specific dates and instructions. Required application materials include:
• Common Application Form (CAF)
• Personal statement
• One letter of recommendation from residency program director
• ECFMG certification (applicable to graduates of foreign medical schools)
• A Color Photo
• USMLE and medical school transcripts

Mission Statement

The mission of the Northern California Kaiser Permanente Addiction Medicine Fellowship is to develop Addiction Medicine specialists who are experts in understanding, communicating, diagnosing, and treating patients with addiction. In the context of the disease model, we believe addiction must be viewed as multi-faceted as possible. We believe cultural, societal, legal, economic, medical, psychiatric, traumatic, biochemical, and neurobiological aspects of addiction need to be considered to reduce stigma, increase access, and decrease the disease burden of substance use disorders for individuals, families and within the larger society.

Didactic Curriculum

The core curriculum includes educational lectures on the assessment and treatment of patients with substance use disorders in both inpatient and outpatient settings, development of critical appraisal skills for literature, clinical leadership training, and experience providing care within interdisciplinary teams. Fellows are expected to attend, participate in, and present at our weekly didactics led by Dr. Parmis Rad, the weekly San Francisco VA addiction psychiatry seminar, the UCSF primary care addiction medicine bridge and buprenorphine conferences, and the national ACAAM weekly meeting. Fellows are also highly encouraged and given time to attend the annual CSAM and ASAM conferences, as well as board review courses. Additionally, fellows present at Kaiser Permanente regional and local meetings throughout the fellowship year.

Supervision and Mentoring

Fellows will be mentored in clinical rotations 1:1 by addiction specialist physicians from addiction medicine and addiction psychiatry throughout the year. They meet with the Program Director weekly for ongoing mentoring during the fellowship. Fellows are also expected to engage in a scholarly project during the fellowship year. This project often involves conducting a literature review or narrative summary to identify a topic of interest and an important research or clinical gap. The project can align with the fellowship’s quality improvement (QI) initiative, with the literature review helping to frame and guide the QI project. Fellows are encouraged to submit their literature reviews for publication as part of their scholarly development.

Contact Information

Addiction Medicine Fellowship Home Site Location:

Related Links

Kaiser Permanente Northern California Resident/Fellowship Program
Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)
American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM)
American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)
Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA)