A follow-up survey of drug abuse and alcoholism teaching in medical schools.

The authors sent a questionnaire regarding the teaching of drug abuse and alcoholism to a stratified random sample of 40 U.S. medical schools, and 35 provided usable replies. The findings are summarized and are contrasted with replies received five years earlier from the same schools. During these five years, there were notable improvements in the teaching of these topics, as reflected by increases in required teaching hours, percentage of total required hours, number of elective courses offered, and number of affiliated clinical programs. The effect of the presence of a career teacher in the addictions is also evaluated.