Alcohol Withdrawal and Detox in a Rural Setting

Facilitator Lesson Plan

The Alcohol Withdrawal and Detox teaching kit contains all you need to host your own team-based, active-learning event featuring work by Kim Kardonsky, MD, the director of the University of Washington Underserved Pathway (UPATH) and Targeted Rural and Underserved Scholars Track (TRUST) and Dave Evans, MD, the program director for University of Washington Family Medicine Residency and Rosenblatt Family Endowed Professor in Rural Health at the University of Washington.

Alcohol abuse is a common problem in all communities. Rural providers may be called upon to manage alcohol abuse and its consequences in ways that are different from better-resourced environments.

NOTE: We anticipate this teaching kit to be relevant until 2030, as the treatment of alcohol withdrawal has not changed in a major way for decades, yet the system for addressing it will likely evolve.

If you have questions about how to use or to adapt this teaching kit to your setting, contact us to schedule a phone call. We are happy to go over the details. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

• Describe the incidence and prevalence of alcohol abuse and withdrawal in rural environments.
• Identify the unique considerations for alcohol abuse and treatment in rural settings.
• Discern which patients are appropriate for out-patient vs in-patient treatment, based on available options in a rural setting.