Humanising Healthcare podcast - "‘Synthetic opioids claiming lives"

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Humanising Healthcare - Synthetic opioids claiming lives

In this edition:

This week, Manasi is joined by Dr Caroline Copeland, Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology & Toxicology and Dr Nicola Kalk, Visiting Clinical Lecturer on the episode ‘Synthetic opioids claiming lives.’ They discuss new and emerging drug trends, the use and impact of nitazenes and how medical practitioners can improve their practice to better support people who use drugs.

Dr Caroline Copeland is a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology & Toxicology at King’s College London, and the Director of the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality (NPSUM). Dr Copeland heads a research group at King’s whose projects have the broad collective aim of improving healthcare strategies for people who use drugs. This is achieved by monitoring the illicit drug market for new and emerging substances, the evaluation of drug policy impact on drug-related death trends, and the identifying of novel public health interventions for people who use drugs. Current projects derived from the NPSUM range from the development of a wearable skin sensor to protect against opioid overdose, to the identification of drug-drug interactions between licensed medicines and illicit substances to prevent adverse effects.

Nicola Kalk is a consultant addiction psychiatrist in the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, leading an addictions liaison service in Kings College Hospital and the Princess Royal University Hospital. She is a visiting senior lecturer in the Addictions Department in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London.

Manasi Nandi

Reader in Integrative Pharmacology

Manasi is a scientist and educator based within the Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the extraction of new information from vital signs data, aiding research and clinical decision making, and identifying earlier alerts of disease. She has expertise in medicine discovery and development and the translation of laboratory findings into clinical practice. She is a fellow of the British Pharmacological Society, most recently supporting efforts to embed inclusive principles into the national curriculum. Inclusivity and accessibility are at the core of her teaching and research practice. She is the Development, Diversity and Inclusion lead for the School and Cancer and Pharmaceutical Science, supporting EDI activities at Faculty and College level. She launched the Humanising Healthcare seminar series in 2023.