Dr. Rachel Alinsky, MD, MPH

Background
Dr. Alinsky is a quadruple-boarded adolescent medicine and addiction medicine physician, who specializes in the treatment of a wide range of physical and mental health conditions for adolescents and young adults. She earned her MD from Georgetown University School of Medicine, and went on to complete a dual residency in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She then completed a dual fellowship in Adolescent Medicine and Addiction Medicine at Johns Hopkins, where she also earned her Masters in Public Health.

She has a strong passion for increasing access to addiction treatment for adolescents and young adults, and has performed health services and systems research on this topic that has been published in JAMA Pediatrics and the Journal of Adolescent Health. She is also dedicated to combating stigma regarding substance use and people who use substances, and led a policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics focused on changing the language all pediatric providers use to discuss substance use to be medically-accurate, person-first, and non-stigmatizing.
 

Clinical Care
Dr. Alinsky joined the University of Maryland University Health Center in 2023 as the inaugural Medical Director of the Substance Use Intervention and Treatment (SUIT) unit, where she oversees substance use disorder treatment services and provides addiction medicine treatment for undergraduate and graduate students who have concerns about their use of alcohol, cannabis, or other drugs. She works with students across a full spectrum of substance use severity, whether that is binge drinking that has started to cause problems, cannabis use that has become more compulsive, to severe addiction. She also provides primary and subspecialty adolescent medicine care at the UHC (such as inclusive sexual and reproductive health care, gender-affirming care, and complex contraceptive management), with a particular focus on the overlap and interconnection of physical health conditions with mental health and substance use concerns. 

She collaborates closely with multidisciplinary team members across the health center, including substance use therapists, behavioral health therapists, psychiatrists, sports medicine, other medical providers in the acute and primary care units, as well as medical specialists outside of UMD.

Approach
Whether in primary care or in the SUIT unit, Dr. Alinsky loves getting to know students in order to learn about what is most important to them as individuals, and understand their own personal goals for their health, academics/career, relationships, and beyond. She then collaborates with students to develop individualized treatment plans to help them reach their goals, whether that goal is abstinence, harm reduction, improved sports performance, or something else. This treatment can include medication for addiction treatment (such as Naltrexone/Vivitrol, buprenorphine/Suboxone, nicotine replacement) as well as treatment for co-occurring anxiety, depression, or physical health conditions. 

Her background in both adolescent and addiction medicine allows her to fully address the physical health complications that may be related to students’ substance use, including chronic nausea, appetite/eating problems, headaches, breathing or cardiovascular problems, sleep issues, and more. Dr. Alinsky is always happy to speak with students considering engaging in substance use treatment or adolescent medicine care, to talk through what to expect at a visit, available resources, potential treatment strategies, and answer any other questions students may have when trying to decide if seeking services is right for them. She aims to be student-centric, trusting students as the experts in their own life and equal partners in creating a treatment that works for them.