Course on Addiction and Recovery Education (CARE)

The CARE online curriculum, in partnership with the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, prepares medical students and practitioners from around the world to identify, intervene and address substance use disorders with their patients.

"No matter what specialty medical students choose, they will take care of patients with substance use disorders. These cases encourage them to start thinking about the impact of substance use on health."
—Sharon Levy, MD, MPH, Associate Professor in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School

Read the Hazelden Betty Ford Medical Education 2021 Annual Report to learn how we are educating medical students and professionals to recognize and respond to the challenges of addiction.

Designed for Medical Students

Medical students receive 2-10 hours of education about addiction, a disease that strikes 1 in 10 Americans over the age of 12.*

This lack of formal substance use disorder training has left many of today's practicing physicians inadequately prepared to assess, intervene, manage, and treat addiction and co-occurring disorders. Properly trained providers will be positioned to better serve substance use patients as well as improve the overall quality and cost-effectiveness of health care.

The Hazelden Betty Ford Course on Addiction and Recovery Education (CARE), an online learning curriculum, was originally developed in collaboration with MedU (now Aquifer), the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), and the Treatment Research Institute (TRI) to address the widely recognized need for substance use disorder education in medical schools. 

"Training in medical school is essential to ground future doctors with the belief that addictions are common, chronic illnesses."
—R. Jeffrey Goldsmith, MD, DLAPA, FASAM, Past President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine] 

In 2020, the NYU Grossman School of Medicine partnered with Hazelden Betty Ford to expand the reach of this important curriculum by hosting CARE within its suite of online learning modules.