Educating Correctional Health Care Providers and Inmates About Drug-Drug Interactions: HIV-Medications and Illicit Drugs

6Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Columbia This paper demonstrates how federal clinicians are collaborating with correctional health care providers in a unique continuing education initiative regarding HIV-medications and drug-drug interactions. Three clinical cases are presented to illustrate the potential dangers associated with concomitant use of ritonavir (a frequently prescribed antiretroviral agent) and illicit drugs. Such clinical cases are regularly presented in an exemplar program that draws clinicians together to share current medical information and notes “from the field ” regarding problems that correctional health care providers and administrators are likely to face. Collaboration between federal clinicians, correctional and community health officials has resulted in a unique forum for disseminating medical information, and represents a prototypical method for broad-based health education