Dr. Aaron Newcomb is the president-elect of ISAM. He holds primary board certification for Family Medicine through the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). He has also held continuous Addiction Medicine certification since 2010, initially through the American Board of Addiction Medicine and is currently subspecialty board certified through the American Board of Preventative Medicine for Addiction Medicine (ABPM). His medical degree comes from A.T. Still University medical school in Kirksville, MO. Since graduating from SIU Family Medicine Residency program in 2008, he has worked solely with Shawnee Health Services, a local community Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Carbondale.

 

Dr. Newcomb pioneered the development of an office-based opioid treatment program in 2011 and has been treating patients continuously since that time with buprenorphine for medication-assisted recovery. He has treated many hundreds of patients with buprenorphine for opioid use disorder over the past twelve years. Many of these patients have over five (5) years of stable buprenorphine treatment directly under his care, some have over ten (10) years continuously.

 

Dr. Newcomb currently serves as the Medical Director for the Substance Use Prevention and Recovery (SUPR) licensed treatment program at Shawnee Health Services. He is an advocate for addiction treatment and has provided hands-on training for medical students as a volunteer faculty member of SIU Medical School and A.T. Still University. He currently serves as a board member for the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians (IAFP).

 

Dr. Newcomb has provided numerous presentations on addiction, the opioid epidemic and medication-assisted recovery at various medical and community venues locally, regionally, and even nationally since 2011.

 

Much of Dr. Newcomb’s passion for medicine is centered in the treatment of addiction. He considers himself a fierce advocate against the bias and stigma attached to this disease. A major theme in this struggle has been securing access to treatment with buprenorphine or other misunderstood controlled substance medications for his patients. His professional activism has expanded over the past few years to address system-level problems, often driven by stigma and its harmful consequences. Much of this work has been accomplished in collaboration with ISAM. Dr. Newcomb is convinced that he must continue to work for a culture change on addiction and its treatment to help others access needed care and the freedom of recovery.

​