Mental Health Week Spotlight: Atlantic Mentorship Network for Pain and Addictions

As treatment for chronic pain, substance use or mental health becomes more complex, a local organization offering an outlet for healthcare professionals to receive peer-to-peer mentorship is becoming even more valuable.

The Atlantic Mentorship Network for Pain & Addiction (AMN) was started nearly two decades ago to help enhance the capacity of community-based primary care providers and allied health care professionals to provide evidence-informed, compassionate care to patients.

The publicly funded organization has fulfilled that mandate, says Dr. Sam Hickcox, medical director of the AMN and certified addiction medicine specialist and a practising psychotherapist. 

“We’re teaching healthcare providers in the community clinical skills, which they can employ every day to work with their patients,” Dr. Hickcox says. “So, these interventions really allow people to address the complexities of individuals living with pain and/or addiction. In doing so, we’re really improving individuals’ overall mental and physical health.”

The AMN has grown to almost 400 voluntary members in Nova Scotia, 14 of whom are mentors. Health care providers from 21 different professions have participated in the network, including physicians, psychologists, physiotherapists, social workers, occupational therapists, nurse practitioners, and registered nurses, working in a variety of settings, including primary care, hospitals and in community practices. 

“Involvement in the network fosters interdisciplinarity and generates over time a safe, compassionate space for people to express their own distress about challenges that they’re facing, and find creative approaches to supporting their patients,” he says.

Once people join the AMN, a relationship is established with a mentor for one-on-one mentorship. Mentors also periodically hold small group meetings with mentees where they talk about cases and engage in discussions.

“That person really acts as a kind of guide for that individual, a cheerleader, a facilitator to their learning,” Dr. Hickcox says. 

“They’re not necessarily a consultant with all the clinical knowledge, but they’re there to build a longitudinal relationship with that person to help them, not only with a particular knowledge domain that they’re interested in expanding, but also to provide the support clinicians need to consolidate and apply knowledge, as well as to help patients through health systems to get the care they need. In this support, health care providers feel less isolated and find more fulfillment in the work that they do.”

Since launching in Nova Scotia, similar networks have started in other jurisdictions, including Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, and in Western Canada. 

Dr. Hickcox says more mental health competencies are being added to the AMN as research shows the link between mental health and physical ailments such as chronic pain.

“We have robust research across all of these networks, not just ours, that shows that clinicians’ involvement in these networks clearly changes their practice behaviour,” Dr. Hickcox says. “And people who get involved in the networks report feeling that they’re able to provide more highly skilled care, they feel more connected to a community of practice of people who are doing this work, and they feel they can provide more compassionate care as well.”

It turns what was once the most exhausting patient encounters into the most meaningful and rewarding ones, benefiting both the patient and provider.