{"id":5965,"date":"2026-01-18T20:39:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T04:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wrwofficial.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/18\/inside-the-battle-for-the-future-of-addiction-medicine-shots\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T20:39:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T04:39:59","slug":"inside-the-battle-for-the-future-of-addiction-medicine-shots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wrwofficial.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/18\/inside-the-battle-for-the-future-of-addiction-medicine-shots\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the battle for the future of addiction medicine : Shots"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Dr. Elyse Stevens, left, attends a community breakfast at a New Orleans nonprofit, with her former patient Ronald Major who says Stevens treated him like family.
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Aneri Pattani\/KFF Health News<\/p>\n

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Aneri Pattani\/KFF Health News<\/p>\n

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NEW ORLEANS \u2014 Dr. Elyse Stevens had a reputation for taking on complex medical cases, including people who’d been battling addiction for decades. Some were chronic-pain patients on high doses of opioids; others were sex workers and people living on the street.<\/p>\n

“Many of my patients are messy, the ones that don’t know if they want to stop using drugs or not,” said Stevens, a primary care and addiction medicine doctor.<\/p>\n

While other doctors avoided these patients, Stevens \u2014 who was familiar with New Orleans from her time in medical school at Tulane University \u2014 sought them out. She regularly attended 6 a.m. breakfasts for homeless people, volunteered at a homeless shelter clinic on Saturdays, and, on Monday evenings, visited an abandoned Family Dollar store where advocates distributed supplies to people who use drugs.<\/p>\n