Addiction Medicine Fellowship

Dr. Anna Lembke received her undergraduate degree in Humanities from Yale University and her medical degree from Stanford University. She is currently Associate Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and a diplomate of the American Board of Addiction Medicine. Dr. Lembke was one of the first in the medical community to sound the alarm regarding opioid overprescribing and the opioid epidemic. In 2016, she published her best-selling book on the prescription drug epidemic, "Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). Her book was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic (Zuger, 2018). "Drug Dealer, MD" combines case studies with public policy, cultural anthropology, and neuroscience, to explore the complex relationship between doctors and patients around prescribing controlled drugs. It has had an impact on policy makers and legislators across the nation. Dr. Lembke has testified before Congress and consulted with governors and senators from Kentucky to Missouri to Nevada. She was a featured guest on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, MSNBC with Chris Hayes, and numerous other media broadcasts. Using her public platform and her faculty position at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Lembke has developed multiple teaching programs on addiction and safe prescribing, as well as opioid tapering. She has held multiple leadership and mentorship positions and received the Stanford’s Chairman’s Award for Clinical Innovation, and the Stanford Departmental Award for Outstanding Teaching. Dr. Lembke continues to educate policymakers and the public about causes of and solutions for the problem of addiction. Look for her new book, "Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence" (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021).

Dr. Benhamou received his Bachelor's degree at Duke University and went on to complete medical school at Ben-Gurion University. He completed his residency in Psychiatry at Westchester Medical Center and fellowship in Addiction Medicine at Stanford. He has published works in the areas of suicide, autoimmune encephalitis and addiction. His current interests include substance abuse, the role of transcranial magnetic stimulation on addiction and the intersection of suicide and substance abuse.

Steven Chan (@StevenChanMD, StevenChanMD.com ), is a clinical informaticist and addiction physician at Palo Alto VA Health, affiliated with Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Chan is co-investigator on clinical research — at UC Davis, funded by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services; and at UCSF, funded by the Stanford-UCSF Center for Excellence in Regulatory Sciences — in areas of telehealth and digital health. Dr. Chan is a sought-after national speaker whose ideas, thoughts, and research have been featured at Fortune 50 companies such as Google; publications such as JAMA, Telemedicine and e-Health, JMIR (Journal of Medical Internet Research), U.S. News & World Report, and Wired; and on media outlets including the Washington Post, Wired, PBS and NPR Ideastream. Dr. Chan served as Vice Chair for the Workgroup on Mental Health & Psychiatric Apps at the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and serves on the Committees on Innovation, Telepsychiatry, and Mental Health Information Technology. Dr. Chan additionally serves as Founder & CEO of MentalPowerHacks.com, media education for life hacks for performance, productivity & success. Dr. Chan draws from his extensive medical, business, and informatics training at California’s leading institutes — UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Davis, as well as UCLA, UC San Francisco and Stanford University

Dr. Anusha Chandrakanthan is a clinical instructor in psychiatry. She is a family practice physician who is board certified in Addiction Medicine. Previously, she was the medical director for a company that provided substance use treatment using telemedicine. Presently, she works with the Valley Homeless Healthcare Program at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center providing services to a marginalized population. She also continues to teach at the Stanford Addiction Medicine fellowship.

Dr. Huiqiong Deng is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry. In addition to a medical degree, she earned a PhD, with a major in rehabilitation science and a minor in neuroscience. Specializing in the treatment of alcohol/substance addiction, interventional and cultural psychiatry, her goal is to help each patient along the journey to achieve optimal health and quality of life. As the co-author of more than a dozen scholarly articles, Dr. Deng’s work has appeared in Psychiatry Research, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, American Journal on Addictions, Brain Stimulation, and other publications. Dr. Deng has won numerous honors and awards such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse Young Investigator Travel Award, the Ruth Fox Scholarship from the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and College on the Problems of Drug Dependence Travel Award for Early Career Investigators. In addition, she was selected to attend the Annual American Psychiatry Association Research Colloquium for Junior Investigators. Since she joined faculty at Stanford, Dr. Deng has received research grant support by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Innovator Grant Program.

Dr. Fenno is a psychiatrist and Instructor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Leveraging his strengths in neuroscience research and bioengineering, his goal is to design, construct, validate, and apply novel molecular and viral tools to understand the brain in health and disease for the benefit of diverse patient populations. His clinical interests include the treatment of substance use disorders and co-occurring mood disorders. His specific research interests include the development and application of novel optogenetic tools that combine genetically encoded molecules and light to modulate neurons. Dr. Fenno directs a team focused on expanding the use of novel, intersectional viral targeting approaches, with the objective of precisely establishing links between neuron circuitry and behavior. He has patented advances for optically controlled CNS dysfunction and social dysfunction. Dr. Fenno has co-written articles on optogenetic tools and other topics in the journals Annual Review of Neuroscience, Neurobiology of Mental Illness, Molecular Psychiatry, Current Protocols in Neuroscience, Nature, and Cell. He is also the co-author of articles on neural mechanisms of autism spectrum disorder, which have appeared in Science Translational Medicine and Nature. Dr. Fenno has delivered presentations worldwide at events including the meeting of the National Science Foundation NeuroNex Program of Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience. He also has been an invited speaker at the Robarts Research Institute, a Canada-based facility accelerating medical discovery of treatments for some of the most debilitating diseases of our time, and the Gordon Research Conference on Molecular Pharmacology, an international forum for the presentation of pre-publication frontier research. For his scholarship and teaching achievements, Dr. Fenno has won numerous honors. They include the Laughlin Fellowship from the American College of Psychiatrists, which honors individuals deemed likely to make a significant contribution to the field of psychiatry, and the Humanism and Excellence in Teaching Award from the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, which honors exceptional teaching skills and commitment to the compassionate treatment of patients and families, students, and colleagues. Dr. Fenno is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, The American Medical Association, and the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Jayme Frihart, ASW, is Clinical Social Worker in the Stanford Outpatient Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. Her role is focused on helping patients and their loved ones connect to the community resources that allow patients to build and sustain long term remission from substance use and improve their quality of mental health. She has worked with dual diagnosis populations since 2015 when she began working with Caminar in their residential homes. From there she worked for San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing in crisis management. 

Dr. T. Kyle Harrison is a Clinical Professor (Affiliated- PAVA) of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University and a staff physician at the VA Palo Alto. He earned his MD and did his residency training in anesthesiology at Stanford University. He completed a medical education and simulation fellowship at Stanford and then obtained additional training in addiction medicine at both Stanford and the VA Palo Alto. He is interested in the intersection of pain and addiction. He attends on both the acute pain service as well as the addiction medicine clinic at the VA Palo Alto. His academic interest include addiction, pain, peri operative management of buprenorphine, conversion of acute to chronic pain, and medical simulation. His email is kyle.harrison@stanford.edu and his twitter handle is @KyleHarrisonMD.

Nancy A. Haug, Ph.D. is Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor and Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program Faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She currently leads didactics and a journal club for Addiction Medicine fellows, and supervises a supplemental practicum for doctoral students who are co-facilitating group therapy. Dr. Haug is also Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Psychology at Palo Alto University where she teaches, advises and supervises graduate students, and leads the Harm Reduction and Addiction Treatment Research Laboratory. Dr. Haug previously served as faculty and attending psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at University of California San Francisco, and taught in the University of California, Berkeley Alcohol & Drug Studies program. Dr. Haug was recently funded by SAMHSA for a practitioner-education initiative to expand training for evidence-based addiction treatment. She is active in the Society of Addiction Psychology (American Psychological Association, Division 50) and chairs the Outreach and Dissemination committee. Dr. Haug is on the editorial board of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs and the Journal of Addictive Diseases. Throughout her academic career, Dr. Haug has focused on behavioral and psychosocial interventions for treating addiction, and currently has projects studying mindfulness group treatment for addiction, cannabis vaping practices and online interventions for alcohol harm reduction. Dr. Haug has been licensed in CA since 2004 and has a private practice which informs her research and teaching.

Alan K. Louie, M.D. is Professor, Associate Chair, and Director of Education in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His current focus is on (1) “Reimagining Mental Healthcare,” a special initiative focusing on digital technology, design thinking, and implementation science; (2) educational innovations in medical school, residency, and fellowships; (3) research involving models of expertise in medical education; and (4) the development of transdisciplinary collaborations and programs in psychiatry and behavioral health. With regards to the latter, he is seeking to establish a continuum of behavioral health education (across high school, college, medical school, residency, neuroscience training, continuing medical education, and public education and advocacy), through his teaching at Stanford University and deputy editorship of Academic Psychiatry, an international journal devoted to behavioral health education, career development, and leadership. His advocacy work aims to decrease mental-illness stigma in diverse cultures and special populations. He has conducted research in basic neuroscience, clinical psychiatry, and medical education and this breadth of experiences has enabled him to mentor learners with a wide range of interests within psychiatry. His publications have included investigation of the molecular mechanisms of opiate tolerance in the brain and neuroscience, behavioral pharmacology, alcoholism and drug abuse, anxiety and affective disorders, clinical psychopharmacology, and medical education. Among his awards are an individual National Research Service Award and a Physician Scientist Award (career development award) both from the National Institute of Mental Health. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, he pursued an internship in internal medicine at Stanford University Hospital, a psychiatric residency at the University of Chicago, and a fellowship in Neuropsychopharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Louie subsequently had a distinguished career at UCSF over almost thirty years, including responsibilities as a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Anxiety and Affective Disorders Consultation Program, Acting Associate Director of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry, Co-Director of the Pre-Clerkship Psychiatry Curriculum, and Co-Director of the Brain, Mind, and Behavior course in the UCSF Essential Core Curriculum. Additionally, he has been the Training Director of the Psychiatry Residency of San Mateo County, co-designer of the San Mateo County – Stanford Community Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship, and Chair of Continuing Medical Education for San Mateo County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. Dr. Louie moved to Stanford University in 2012 and publications list below are since he joined Stanford.

Johnna Medina, PhD, is a Clinical Instructor at Stanford medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, where she is an attending psychologist in the Addiction Medicine/Dual-Diagnosis Clinic and continues to collaborate on research projects evaluating mind-body interrelationships (e.g., stress and health) and interventions (e.g., hypnosis, yoga). Dr. Medina earned her bachelor's degrees in Psychology and Art Practice at Stanford University (2009) and her PhD in Clinical Psychology at UT Austin (2017). Her dissertation research focused on exercise and yoga-based interventions for targeting anxiety-related risk and maintenance factors underlying addictive behaviors. She returned to Stanford to complete her postdoctoral research fellowship (2017-2019) as a T32 scholar working under Dr. David Spiegel in the Center on Stress and Health Lab.

Dr. Ostacher is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is the Site Director for the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, where he also serves as the Medical Director of the Pharmacology of Addiction Recovery Clinic, the Director of the Bipolar and Depression Research Program and the Director of Advanced Fellowship Training in Mental Illness Research and Treatment for MDs for the VISN 21 MIRECC, and the Site Director at the VA Palo Alto for Advanced Fellowship Training for Stanford. A graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Harvard Medical School, he completed his training at The Cambridge Health Alliance at Harvard Medical School in Adult Psychiatry, Public Psychiatry, and Geriatric Psychiatry, and is currently board certified in Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine. He is the Digital Content Editor for the journal Evidence-Based Mental Health and is on the editorial boards of Bipolar Disorders, the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Current Psychiatry, and Psychiatric Annals. His current research includes roles as Site Investigator for VA-BRAVE, multicenter, randomized trial comparing long-acting injectable buprenorphine to sublingual buprenorphine/naloxone, and as a Co-investigator for PRIME-VA, a 21-site study of pharmacogenomics in the treatment of major depressive disorder. With funding from NIDA, he studies, along with Jaimee Heffner, Ph.D. at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, smoking cessation in people with bipolar disorder using a novel online psychotherapy derived from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. His primary research interest is in large clinical trials mental health and addiction, and the implementation of evidence-based mental health practices.

Dr. Amer Raheemullah, MD, is Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and Director of the Addiction Medicine Consult Service at Stanford Hospital. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine and has a special interest in developing methods to increase access to basic addiction treatment, through hospital settings, telehealth digital solutions, and criminal justice settings. He was born and raised in the Chicagoland area and pursued his undergraduate degree in Economics at the University of Illinois. He worked within the jails and prisons to provide free education and addiction programs for years until completing his Internal Medicine training at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He moved on to complete an Addiction Medicine fellowship at Stanford and stayed on the faculty to launch the Addiction Medicine Consult Service which offers addiction interventions to hospitalized patients by a team of addiction medicine specialists, peer recovery counselors, and complex care manager. He lives with his wife and two children in the Bay Area where he also helps design digital solutions to increase access to addiction treatment.

Dr.Sahlem is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is a board-certified psychiatrist with fellowship training in neuromodulation based treatments including repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). He additionally has advanced training in the treatment of addictive, mood, and sleep disorders. In addition to being an active clinician, Dr.Sahlem is a member of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab and directs the Addictions Research Section of the Lab. Major areas of study for Dr.Sahlem include: The development of rTMS as a focused treatment for addictive disorders; the development of a novel form of ECT theorized to have reduced cognitive side effects, Focal Electrically Administered Seizure Therapy (FEAST), and; the further development of rTMS for the treatment of mood disorders.

Dr. Rachel Sussman grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Chicago, and completed college at Yale, a master's degree in psychology at Harvard, and her medical degree at Stanford. She worked and studied for several years in Belgium and China. As a former middle and high school science teacher, she has a strong interest in education and the importance of good communication with patients. She has particular interests in women's health, pediatrics, lactation, and nutrition for the whole family. Her interest in psychology also guided her towards a fellowship at Stanford and expertise in addiction and chemical dependency. Dr. Sussman enjoys biking everywhere she can with her three kids, going to the farmer's market on the weekends, reading, and yoga.

Sheila Thares-Callaway, R.N. M.S., M.H.P.N.P., received her Master’s Degree in Science from U.C. S.F. with training in Internal Medicine with a specialty as a Mental Health Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. Her advanced practice education is built upon an extensive experience as a registered nurse in intensive care. She was the manager at both O’Connor hospital Pain Clinic as well as The Chemical Dependency Recovery Center. Her career includes a volunteer position as WE CARE President, a nurse recovery support group. While Director of Renascence Women’s recovery homes in San Jose and Campbell, she assisted in establishing the residential licensing and certification. She is currently a clinician in addiction medicine and psychiatry. In private practice for over 15 years, supervised by Dr. Jerry Callaway in a small group practice. At Santa Clara Kaiser, Addiction Medicine Recovery Service department she an integral member of a large interdisciplinary team with supervision by Dr. Daniel Saal. She is a member of the American Psychiatric Nurse Association and holds certification with the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She is co-author of a patient handout with Steve Grinstead, Phd., of “Addiction Free Pain Management.” At Kaiser, the scope of her clinical practice includes hospital rounds and assisting with training residents and fellows in addiction medicine from Stanford. She provides physical exams, evaluation, and management of psychiatric illnesses (in private practice). A founding member of the MTD (Multidisciplinary Team) which meets weekly consult to help the Primary Care Physician and Psychiatrists with patients who have complex multi-diagnoses. She is also a member of the Kaiser Linkage Research project which links patients in recovery with a Primary Care Physician. Ms. Thares utilizes multiple modalities in providing counseling and patient education.