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Physician substance abuse is catastrophic and potentially career-ending. Most states run physician health programs to manage treatment and supervise practice for recovering physicians. To evaluate the effectiveness of these programs, researchers conducted a retrospective, longitudinal cohort study of 904 consecutive physicians who were admitted to 1 of 16 state programs from 1995 to 2001. Physicians were followed for 5 years to assess completion of the program, alcohol and drug use, and occupational status.
Most physicians were men (87%) and married (63%); the average age was 44. The most common specialties were family medicine (20%), internal medicine (13%), anesthesiology (11%), emergency medicine (7%), and psychiatry (7%). Alcohol was the…