Dr. Brian Fuehrlein Receives the 2025 Addiction Policy Forum Pillar of Excellence Award

The 2025 Addiction Policy Forum Pillar of Excellence is awarded to Dr. Brian Fuehrlein

Presented annually, this award is to honor those in the field who have demonstrated exceptional leadership in improving our response to individuals with substance use disorders and communities in need.

Dr. Brian Fuehrlein, M.D., PH.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University and Director of Acute Care Psychiatry at the Veterans Administration (VA) Connecticut Healthcare System, specializes in emergency and addiction psychiatry and medical education. At the VA, Dr. Fuehrlein is the director of the psychiatric emergency room, a unit that cares for the most vulnerable veterans, who often have chronic mental illness and substance use disorders. His unit was one of the first in the country to initiate medications for opioid use disorder in an emergency room setting and arrange close outpatient follow-up. He also manages complicated alcohol withdrawal, psychosis, mania, suicidality, and grave disability in complex veterans. Dr. Fuehrlein believes treatment requires a multi-modal approach, one-size does not fit all, and a commitment over a long period of time. Dr. Fuehrlein educates his patients and colleagues on the multi-modal approach to help provide patients with a whole-person centered approach.

Additionally, Dr. Fuehrlein is the chief mental health consultant for the National Emergency Medicine Office at VA Central Office. In that role, he works to improve emergency care for veterans across the VA system. He serves on and leads national committees, provides field support and consultation, and is the national subject matter expert on emergency psychiatry issues involving veteran care.

In addition to his clinical and administrative duties, Dr. Fuehrlein engages in research and writing. He has authored or co-authored approximately 75 peer-reviewed publications. He currently serves as a section editor for the journals Current Addiction Reports and Frontiers in Public Health as well as editing the psychiatry section of the Encyclopedia of Neurological Sciences. He is also a local site investigator for a research study comparing sublingual to extended-release buprenorphine for opioid use disorder.

In addition to his academic and clinical work, Dr. Fuehrlein serves on the Addiction Policy Forum’s Scientific Advisory Board, contributing to strategic guidance and direction for the organization’s programs in addiction treatment and research. He has also led webinars for the Addiction Policy Forum on substance use disorder and stigma and been featured on the Addiction Policy Forum’s Ask the Expert Video series.

Dr. Fuehrlein has a strong passion for medical education, particularly in the field of addiction psychiatry, and actively serves on multiple local and national committees to advance this work. At the Yale University School of Medicine, he serves as a longitudinal coach for medical students and is the director of electives and sub-internships for the Department of Psychiatry. He works with students, residents, and other faculty members, where he teaches addiction as a health condition. Dr. Fuehrlein excels at teaching in a way that others recognize there is a biological reason why someone struggling with addiction may act in a certain manner.

In recognition of his dedication to teaching, he received the Clerkship Faculty Teaching Award for Outstanding Medical Student Educator and Role Model in 2018, the APA Roeske Teaching Award for outstanding and sustaining contributions to medical student education in 2022, and the Award for Medical Student Education from the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry in 2023. He was inducted into the American College of Psychiatrists in 2019, honoring his excellence in clinical practice, research, leadership, and teaching.

He earned his M.D.–Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 2008, completed his adult psychiatry residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in 2012, and finished an addiction psychiatry fellowship at Yale University in 2013.