Mother of Methadone : a doctor's quest, a forgotten history, and a modern-day crisis / Melody Glenn, MD.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Glenn, Melody, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Methadone maintenance--History.

Methadone maintenance.

Stigma (Social psychology).

Opioid abuse.

Robinson, Marie Nyswander, 1919-1986.

Robinson, Marie Nyswander.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

x, 221 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Boston : Beacon Press, [2025]

Summary:

Brings together the stories of two doctors battling the opioid epidemic half a century apart to reveal the origins of today's public health crisis A call to remove the stigma against addicts, addiction, and treatment providers Dr. Melody Glenn was a burned-out emergency physician who had grown to resent the large population of opioid dependent patients passing through her ER. While working at a methadone clinic, she realized how effective harm reduction treatments could be and set out to discover why they weren't used more broadly. That's when she found Dr. Marie Nyswander. In the 1960's, Nyswander defied the DEA and medical establishment to co-develop methadone maintenance as a treatment for heroin addiction. According to some addiction specialists, its discovery could be considered as monumental as the discovery of penicillin. Yet, it still carries a stigma today. Deftly weaving together interviews, media coverage, and historical documents, Glenn recovers Nyswander's important legacy and reveals how the forces of racism, fearmongering politicians, and misinformation colluded to set us back decades in our understandings of opioids. With Nyswander as her guide, Glenn also shares her journey through addiction medicine as she confronts her own personal and philosophical quandaries around bias, ambition, and saviorism in the medical field. As the US continues to struggle with opioid and fentanyl use in communities, Mother of Methadone is a powerful reminder of the ways biases have prevented doctors from saving countless lives.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The clinic

The beginning

Bupísta

Narco

Flight

Roped back

Sisyphus

The cure

Hope

Zenith

The fall

Unanswered questions

Grassroots.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-211) and index.

ISBN:

9780807017760

0807017760

OCLC:

1519086266

Publisher Number:

90102216743