Speaker Name: Dr. Chris Stewart-Patterson
Session Description:
Clinicians may be asked to provide a fitness to work evaluation which entails considering a clinical opinion around fitness for safety sensitive work with patients and/or clients that may have or do have active substance use disorders. Patients undergoing these evaluations may may also have had distant substance use disorders in sustained remission.
The presentation will provide an outline of clinical factors to be addressed and the process of fitness to work evaluations will be reviewed.
Although the vast majority of such assessments can be straightforward the issue of more complex evaluations will be addressed. A perspective on how denial might impact such an assessment will be discussed. The issue of hidden or undisclosed impairment in the context of evaluation for safety sensitive work will be approached.
Various existing industry guidelines for this particular clinical situation will be reviewed.
Learning Objectives:
Fitness to Work in Safety-Sensitive Workers;
The 30 minute presentation will review:
1. Definition of SSW
2. Rationale for fitness for duty examinations
3. Typical fitness for duty examinations
4. The challenge of hidden impairment
5. Clinical resources
BIO
Dr. Stewart-Patterson has practiced Occupational medicine since 1989. He specializes in medical and psychiatric fitness to work evaluations for safety critical/sensitive occupations such as railway, high pressure pipeline workers, fire, police and correction officers. He has lectured internationally on fitness to work and malingering. Dr. Stewart-Patterson was a past CME course director of “Medical Fitness to Return to Work” for Harvard Medical School