Health Service Categories and Careers

A-Z OF SERVICES

Addiction Medicine focuses on treating and managing an individual experiencing addiction of alcohol, or illicit or prescription drugs. It incorporates knowledge and treatments from psychology, psychiatry, public health, clinical internal medicine, pharmacology, and social work. Services include programs and clinics which manage withdrawal symptoms and provide acute intervention, education, detoxification, rehabilitation, and coordination of counselling and other therapies, care or support services. Addiction medicine, and drug and alcohol treatment and recovery services are provided by multi-disciplinary teams in hospitals, primary care practices, residences, and community settings.

Addiction Medicine/Alcohol and Other Drugs Services Jobs

Nurses (Alcohol and Drugs) specialise in providing nursing care and delivering alcohol, drugs and addiction services in hospitals and community clinics. They work collaboratively in multidisciplinary teams, providing clinical and operational support, to deliver services which help people struggling with addiction and other co-morbid health conditions and circumstances. They help provide acute care, assessment, and intervention. They help manage, support, and care for patients in withdrawal and other rehabilitation programs. They may be involved in education and prevention, or research and data inquiry. They are often responsible for patient flow, medication management and documentation. To pursue a career in this area, Nurses need to be registered and commonly come from Adult or Mental Health Nursing streams. For more information, please see the Nursing section.