Cara A. Poland, MD, MEd, FACP, DFASAM
Candidate for Vice-President
Cara A. Poland, MD, MEd, FACP, DFASAM is a faculty member at Michigan State University. She earned her medical degree from Wayne State University. She was trained in internal medicine at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and addiction medicine at Boston Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She received her master’s degree in education from Boston University.
Her work centers around educating healthcare providers and providers-in-training to improve care for patients with substance use disorders. To this end, in 2018, she identified the need to strengthen our country’s Addiction Medicine workforce. Led by Dr. Poland, MI CARES trains physician-level addiction specialists across the country. Over 2,000 physicians in all 50 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico have been supported by MI CARES. The program also teaches physicians-in-training, resident physicians, social work students, social work practitioners, APRN, and PA practitioners.
Her didactic program involves purposeful education to train healthcare providers to treat persons with SUDs in a kind, compassionate, destigmatized way. Dr. Poland also has a particular interest in treating families affected by substance use disorders. Dr. Poland regularly appears in the media and at community events, advocating for those she serves. She has directly influenced policies and procedures around the treatment of people with SUDs. Her persistent advocacy has helped to advance more evidence-based treatment opportunities, as evidenced by her role as the Public Policy Chair for the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
The State of Michigan has removed prior authorizations for medications to treat SUDs and updated rules governing SUD treatment programs. Dr. Poland is the chair of the Michigan Opioid Advisory Commission, established as the designated state entity to advise the Michigan legislature on the appropriate use of opioid settlement funds in compliance with the requirements of the national opioid settlements.
Dr. Poland also serves ASAM as the Continuing Education Chair. Finally, Dr. Poland dedicates her professional work to the memory of her brother, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a complication of his alcohol use disorder.
Candidate Questionnaire Responses
1. What have been your greatest contributions to ASAM or to the field of addiction medicine over the last 10 years?
As a fellow at Boston University, through an HRSA grant, I obtained a master’s degree in education. During this tumultuous time in my life, my brother died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound secondary to his depression from a long-standing alcohol use disorder. It was halfway through my fellowship, and that’s when addiction medicine turned from a career into my life’s passion.
I wrote my master’s thesis on integrating addiction medicine into the curriculum – the whole time wondering if Max had access to evidence-based addiction treatment, would he still be alive? Why didn’t he have access to medications to treat his AUD? As I pursued my master’s degree, it became unequivocally evident that stigma played a massive role in the system’s unwillingness to treat persons with a substance use disorder with dignity and respect. How was I so different from my brother with my chronic illnesses – we were raised in the same family, and we had similar opportunities growing up – where was the disconnect?
I realized that my fellow physicians like to be “the knowledge carriers,” and since they didn’t know what to do with someone with an AUD, the easiest thing was to do nothing. This wasn’t good enough for me, for Max, or the millions of others like him across the nation and in the world. When I finished my fellowship and returned to Michigan, I learned that Michigan’s Medicaid did not cover seeing a physician for someone with any substance use disorder. It was a parity issue. After ten years of advocacy and incremental changes, Medicaid created a policy to cover physicians through our HMO system, which they referred to internally as “the Poland Policy.” That’s how I came to advocacy – I had hundreds of conversations with the legislature, multiple governor’s offices, and countless personnel in the health department – and it taught me never to give up.
I now chair Michigan’s Opioid Advisory Commission, the legislative advisory council for Michigan’s state share of its $1.6 Billion in opioid settlement dollars. The commission has run on a platform of public information, public transparency, accountability, and fidelity to the national standards in opioid settlement spending. Despite being a contentious space, I lead the commission with integrity, knowing that, ultimately, Michiganders deserve to have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to positively affect those who, like me, have suffered the consequences of this devastating crisis.
My advocacy work at the state level initially got me involved with ASAM national, first through the Public Policy Committee, which I now chair, and briefly as a member of the Advocacy Committee. Writing policy is challenging, but I do it in service to ASAM because it allows us to support our ongoing work at national and state levels. I’m proud of the changes we’ve made in the committee process since I became chair, from shorter policies geared toward legislative members and their staff to policies in response to state-level trends (and, for anyone who knows me well, fewer synchronous meetings), I’ve streamlined the process of identifying and writing policies and made them more usable by the intended audience.
In addition, I’ve been a longstanding member of the Medical Education Executive Committee as chair of the Continuing Education Committee. During my tenure, we have received broad accreditation through the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, which allows us to provide credits for a wider audience, thereby increasing our organization’s educational reach beyond physicians.
2. How would your election to the ASAM Board of Directors benefit ASAM and the field of addiction medicine?
My election would benefit ASAM because I have been an ongoing participant and supporter of the organization for over a decade. I remember my first ASAM meeting, feeling a little lost when Kelly Clark approached me, handed me her card, and said, “Let’s talk about getting you involved.” It wasn’t long after that when I presented at the ASAM review course after completing my fellowship.
Working with the education team showed me what a strong and growing organization ASAM was. I was later invited at the recommendation of the Education Team to be on an ASAM Task Force looking at the organization's growth. I was intrigued to learn how far the organization had come and note the beginning of exponential growth at ASAM and in addiction medicine. I felt isolated when I moved back to Michigan after doing a fellowship in Boston. It felt like I was alone after being in such an addiction treatment resource-rich region and program for my training. I again leaned into ASAM and worked with several colleagues to reinvigorate our state chapter. We went from a meeting of seven physicians to hosting a half-day CME event focusing on workforce development and creating excitement in medical students, residents, and fellows.
I quickly became our advocacy chair and, subsequently, our president-elect, president, and past-president – serving on that board for eight years and as advocacy chair for ten years, as I will be stepping down as advocacy chair in November. As MI SAM advocacy chair, I leaned heavily on the ASAM state chapter advocacy staff to support letter writing, bounce ideas, identify appropriate national policy, etc. This is all dovetailed with my work at the national level, where I currently chair the Continuing Education Committee and Public Policy Committees. These roles also allow me to sit on the leadership councils – the Medical Education Council (MEC) and the Public Policy Coordinating Council (PPCC.)
As Vice President of ASAM, I could help support melding this work together. With a strong understanding of how the MEC and the PPCC work, along with committee work under both, I am uniquely situated to support ongoing alignment efforts across the organization. Furthermore, as PPC chair, I am an ex-officio on the board of directors. I have observed how the board functions and actively participate in board deliberations despite not having a voting role.
Being on the Executive Committee would allow me to support the organization's cross-sectional growth better. My professional work is bucketed into an educational piece, where I lead MI CARES, which educates across the physician education spectrum from UME through CME. We are listed as a resource for ASAM members on the national website and participate every year in the review course, supporting physicians, both MD and DO, through the practice pathway. To date, we have over 2,000 physicians enrolled and have supported 250 physicians who are now board-certified in Addiction Medicine through the ABPM pathway. We have a partnership with the AMA Ed-Hub, where we have over 2,000 new physician enrollees in the educational portion of our portfolio every month.
The program also supports electives for six medical schools in Michigan, a smattering of additional nationwide, and resident education for residents in nearly all 50 states. This helps support not only the field of addiction medicine but also ensures that patients will receive higher-quality, less stigmatizing care across the healthcare system when interacting with physicians.
Finally, I’ve dedicated my clinical work to serving pregnant people and families with substance use disorders. My program treats pregnant and parenting people and has received national recognition from SAMHSA and in public media outlets like the New York Times. My somewhat casual approach to patient care focuses on reducing stigma for people coming to care. It acts as a training ground for future physicians, including fellows, and I am also a Fellowship Program Director.
I’m known for my down-to-earth, midwestern girl perspective on treating addiction with kindness and supporting people where they are – even if that means sitting on the floor in front of a patient. Each of my patients and their families receive a handmade blanket from me, showing them that they are not only cared for in the doctor-patient relationship but also as a human who deserves kindness, caring, and support for no other reason than being themselves.
It would be an honor and a privilege to continue my service to ASAM by becoming your vice president. Thank you for your consideration of my candidacy.