Recognizing and Diagnosing Addiction as a Clinician

In an interview with Psychiatric Times, Christopher Schenewerk, MD, discussed how he recognizes and diagnoses addiction in patients coming in to his family practice.

Schenewerk said before he went to rehab, he had very little experience with patients coming in specifically for addiction. “They may have been having cries for help, or just hiding it, but I couldn’t recognize it,” Schenewerk said. He said his psychiatric team in rehab told him that being open about his alcoholism will bring people to him.

Now, he said, at least one of the clinicians at his practice see a patient dealing with addiction a day. Whether they are an addict themselves or a loved one that is an addict, addiction has become a more popular atopic in his clinic since returning from rehab himself.

He said before he sought treatment, he didn’t know how to treat his own patients for addiction. “We would just say, ‘go to a meeting and here’s some resources to call.’ You know, I never checked into those resources before I got help.” Schenewerk said.

When a patient is dealing with mental health issues, Schenewerk said, clinicians should screen for addiction and have honest conversations warning patients of the dangers of overuse of alcohol or marijuana. He said he takes referrals from his peers of patients dealing with alcoholism in order to help them.

Clinicians should also keep an eye on patients who are either in the hospital or the doctor’s office with unusual issues, especially with ER visits. “I just had a gentleman where we kind of knew he was drinking before but wasn’t honest with us, but came in after a car accident. Then he. Came in after he broke his arm at home, and this is a guy in his early 40s, late 30s, something like that,” Schenewerk said. He pointed out that either the patient has really bad luck or something is going on.

This is part 1 of a 3 part series. You can watch the full interview here.

Dr Scenewerk is a family medicine physician and is the medical director at Illinois Recovery Center.