Dr. Adam Clements of Aspirus Health, who had been mentored for years as a UW-CTRI student by Dr. Doug Jorenby, recently became board-certified in addiction medicine.
“I needed to tell that to Doug as a thank you,” Clements said. “I got hired at UW-CTRI almost by accident. I had been looking at bench science for my future career. I changed gears pretty hard while working on a few studies at UW-CTRI (Wisconsin Smokers’ Health Study, NICVAX, and the varenicline study). During that time, I became interested in addiction medicine and even signed up to work for an alcohol addiction study in a psychology lab.
“While in residency, the burden of disease from addiction that I saw was really concerning. I pursued my X-waiver from the DEA to treat opioid use disorder, then everything took off from there. We started an addiction clinic in Wausau, that has been expanded, and now we have residents graduating who are very competent in addiction medicine. I doubt I would have had that specific interest had I not had the UW-CTRI experience.”
Dr. Clements is now embodying the Wisconsin idea in Wausau as the Program Director of the Aspirus Family Medicine Residency and the Program Director – Aspirus Hospital Medicine Fellowship. He’s the Medical Director of the Office of Medical Education.