Kristine Torres-Lockhart, MD, FASAM
Candidate for Regional Director
Region I - New York
Kristine Torres-Lockhart, MD, FASAM is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, as well as the founding director of the Addiction Consult Service at Montefiore's Weiler Hospital. She is Program Director of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship and Co-Director of the Addiction Medicine rotation for medical trainees. An addiction medicine and internal medicine physician, she leads the development and implementation of health system interventions to improve substance use disorder (SUD) care in acute care settings and transitions of care to post-acute and ambulatory care settings. Dr. Torres-Lockhart provides SUD treatment, HIV/AIDS care, hepatitis C treatment, and general internal medicine care at several sites across Montefiore Medical Center, including a community health care center. She also actively teaches and supervises medical students, residents, and fellows. She is double board certified in addiction medicine and internal medicine and credentialed as an HIV specialist by the American Academy of HIV Medicine.
Dr. Torres-Lockhart completed her fellowship training in addiction medicine at Montefiore Medical Center. Prior to arriving at Montefiore, she completed her residency training in internal medicine and primary care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, where she also served as primary care chief medicine resident at the West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain Veterans Affairs Medical Centers. She received her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and her medical degree from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. She is the PI for a HRSA training grant and co-PI for an OASAS training grant to lead the development of educational opportunities in building the addiction medicine workforce. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the New York Society of Addiction Medicine previously as Communication Chair and now as Secretary.
Candidate Questionnaire Responses
1. What have been your greatest contributions to ASAM or to the field of addiction medicine over the last 10 years?
My first introduction to ASAM and my local chapter, NYSAM, was a few short years ago in 2019 when I attended my first conference as part of my addiction medicine fellowship training experience at Montefiore/Einstein. There, I was drawn to a larger community of addiction medicine providers who were passionate about expanding evidence-based care and education around addiction medicine. Since then, I have served as a member of ASAM and NYSAM and have had the pleasure of serving on the Board of Directors for my local, NYSAM, chapter in some capacity since 2021 initially as Chair of the Communications Committee and then now as Secretary in addition to participating in the NYSAM policy and education committees as well. As Communications Chair, I led efforts to engage the broader membership with regular newsletters, emails, social media development and engagement, and website re-design. Additionally, given COVID precautions, our annual conference was virtual, and helped to re-design the website to ensure a seamless virtual conference. For my initial efforts on the Board, I was awarded the NYSAM President’s Award in 2022. Outside of my local NYSAM chapter, I attend and present at national annual ASAM conferences and would love the opportunity to further engage with ASAM on a more broad platform as a Regional Director going forward.
Outside of my work with NYSAM, I currently work as an addiction medicine specialist and general internist as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Montefiore/Einstein in Bronx, NY where I serve as Program Director of the Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program and am the Founding Director of the Addiction Consult Service in the Weiler Hospital. I am passionate about increasing access to equitable substance use care in acute care settings and across transitions of care for people who use substances in addition to better integrating addiction medicine education into the general medical curricula for trainees. I lead the integration of addiction medicine into general medical settings and promote clinical program development at my healthcare institution. Since graduating from fellowship in 2020, I founded and direct our Addiction Medicine Consult Service. Our service his become an indispensable teaching service, training addiction medicine fellows, addiction psychiatry fellows, residents, medical students and other interdisciplinary learners from the local NP and PA programs. Our program has increased the provision of evidence-based treatment for alcohol, opioid and other substance use disorders and promoted increases in outpatient linkage to ongoing care (which has been shared as 2 different peer reviewed articles in addiction focused journals). We will now be expanding our addiction service to a second hospital site across our health system shortly. I also work to provide more evidence-based care for our hospital system of 11 sites through the provision of hospital protocols, policies, and guidelines for opioid and alcohol withdrawal and harm reduction. Since overseeing the Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program, our program has grown from 1 fellow per year to now 4 fellows per year, who go on to engage with ASAM and NYSAM nationally and locally and develop their own addiction medicine programs across the country and Northeast. In short, I am passionate about furthering the clinical program development of equitable substance use care and education around addiction medicine and do this in my day-to-day work at Montefiore and through ASAM and NYSAM. I hope to do this on a broader scale as Regional Director and further national collaborations.
2. How would your election to the ASAM Board of Directors benefit ASAM and the field of addiction medicine?
I currently work with ASAM predominantly through my local NYSAM chapter and have contributed in various different aspects through my participation as a member, board member, and participated in various sub-committees to improve education and access to addiction care in my state. Through my day to day work at Montefiore/Einstein in Bronx, NY as a Program Director of an addiction medicine fellowship and Director of an addiction consult service, I lead the development of clinical program development and medication education around addiction at my local health system and the medical school. Additionally, I work with other national organizations like PCSS and AAP to further develop education around addiction medicine. Given my strengths in clinical program development, medical education and collaboration, I would be an asset to ASAM as an organization as a Regional Director.
I have extensive experience developing clinical programs in a large safety net health system in an epicenter of the overdose crisis and have been successful in transforming the health system’s approach to addiction care in acute care settings. I have also been able to dramatically increase and formalize medical education around addiction in my role as a program director of a fellowship program and co-director of the addiction medicine rotation and mentored training program at my institution. In these roles, I have collaborated with various addiction medicine, addiction psychiatry, hospital medicine, emergency medicine providers, and various other non physician providers to deliver better addiction care through clinical experiences and formalized education.
My leadership skills, strengths, successful collaborations and network will be beneficial to ASAM going forward as I work on a broader platform in the organization to help improve the organizations reach and goals to improve access to equitable substance use disorder care, increase education around addiction medicine, build the addiction workforce through recruitment and pipeline development, and collaboration with other groups at the intersection of addiction care, policy, and education.