Yale College Ethics, Politics, and Economics student Ben Nikitin ‘23 attended the International Society of Addiction Medicine (ISAM) Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Thank you so much for your generosity in granting me these funds, which enabled me to attend the International Society of Addiction Medicine (ISAM) Conference!
I had a very productive trip to the conference. I presented on my research on HIV prevention for both internally and externally displaced Ukrainians amid the war. I have attached below a couple pictures from the conference.
Aside from the presentation itself, the conference was the perfect venue to network with colleagues performing research in the same field. I connected with several important stakeholders in the addiction medicine field, including the incoming chair of ISAM, Yale’s own Dr. Marc Potenza, and a drug policy expert, Dr. Carl Erik Fisher. My conversations with these individuals led me to further improve and develop my senior thesis, which focuses on HIV policy in the EU and its impact on Ukrainian refugees.
Finally, I also learned a lot of new things at the conference. I attended talks that touched on the provision of opioid agonist therapy in Central Asia and HCV treatment in the Nordic countries. I also learned a lot outside of my area of focus. For example, I attended a talk on narcotics law.