AAMCNews has just published a viewpoint, written by a medical student, on how to help a peer struggling with drug or alcohol abuse. Lala Tanmoy (Tom) Das, student in the Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD-PhD program, reminds other students “you are their peer, not their doctor.” Check in with the person directly, stay level-headed, don’t lecture, do more listening than talking, don’t badger.
Tom Das’s advice is well-taken by non-medical students too. “But while it is hard to predict who will be receptive and who won’t, they are still conversations worth having and may allow people to know what options they have to address their substance use challenges before things spiral out of control.”
If you have examples of peer-to-peer help in this area, we’d love to hear them. Have you found success initiating a conversation about substance use concerns?
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Geoffrey Young
Senior Director
Association of American Medical Colleges
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