by: Jamie Holmes Updated: Aug 8, 2017 - 6:45 PM <\/p>\n
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - In 2015, more than 500 people died in Orlando from prescription drug overdoses, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. <\/p>\n
Most of those cases started with a visit to a doctor's office and a prescription turned into an addiction. <\/p>\n
University of Central Floridas medical school is now changing how it educates its future doctors and it's a plan going nationwide. <\/p>\n
Future doctors at the university will not only learn what to do to help a patient, but will also learn what not to give them. <\/p>\n
Read: UCF breaks ground on downtown Orlando campus <\/p>\n
Dr. Martin Klapheke, the assistant dean of UCFs medical school, said students will learn how to do a little more research on their patients history. <\/p>\n
The school has changed its curriculum to add much more focus on opioids. <\/p>\n
Future doctors including Christopher Schow will take classes on how to better identify addicts and when to recommend non-narcotic options, such as physical therapy and acupuncture. <\/p>\n
And they'll have to study much more of their patient's history. <\/p>\n
For Schow, its personal. <\/p>\n
The second-year student lost his mother to an Oxycontin overdose when he was 14 years old. <\/p>\n
\"I want to be a better doctor. I want to lift up the entire profession as much as I can personally, to make us all do better, he said. <\/p>\n
And doctors historically are partially to blame. <\/p>\n
Read: UCF unveils mural of 2 Knights killed in Pulse nightclub shooting <\/p>\n
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some 75 percent of heroin users got their start because they were first hooked to prescription opioids. <\/p>\n
For physicians of previous generations, it was just about stopping the pain. <\/p>\n
\"I went to med school a long time ago. And back then, I got a lot more training on antibiotics than I did on how to use opioids,\" said Klapheke. <\/p>\n
But for Schow, it will largely be about knowing your patient better so that hell know when to prescribe something that isnt a pill. <\/p>\n
Its a lesson he learned before medical school. <\/p>\n
\"Make sure you're keeping up with them. Know what's going on in their life. If that happened for my mom, she would have gotten help, he said. <\/p>\n
At the end of the month, UCF will publish some of its curriculum nationwide for other medical schools to use. <\/p>\n
Last year, the assistant dean of the school was in Washington, D.C., working with federal health officials on how to develop a national plan for all medical schools to address the opioid crisis. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
2017 Cox Media Group. <\/p>\n
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