Robyn Jordan, MD – President (Term 2022-2024)
Dr. Jordan is a Board-Certified Psychiatrist and Addiction Medicine Specialist and is an Associate Professor in the UNC School of Medicine. She is the medical director of the UNC Addiction Medicine Program and serves as the Program Director for the UNC Addiction Medicine Fellowship. Dr. Jordan has led initiatives such as suboxone initiation in the UNC emergency department and developed an inpatient consult service for patients hospitalized with infection from IV drug use, reducing hospital readmissions for this population by 50%. She is now leading the NC STAR network, a statewide Hub and Spoke model for connecting addiction treatment providers across NC. Dr. Jordan remains committed to finding innovative ways to bring addiction treatment to the citizens of North Carolina.
Michael Baca-Atlas, MD – President-Elect (Term 2022-2024)
Dr. Michael Baca-Atlas completed his undergraduate work at the University of Maryland, College Park and medical school at University of Maryland in Baltimore. He completed his Family Medicine residency at UNC as well as an Addiction Medicine fellowship at UNC in the department of psychiatry. He serves as the associate medical director for the Tobacco Treatment Program as well as a medical consultant for UNC Horizons, a program that serves women, including those who are pregnant or parenting with substance use disorders. His clinical duties include seeing patients at UNC WakeBrook Primary Care with serious mental illness and substance use disorders as well as working on UNC WakeBrook’s Alcohol and Drug Detoxification Unit (ADU). Also, he serves as an attending on the inpatient family medicine service at UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus. He teaches addiction medicine fellows, family medicine/psychiatry/nurse practitioner residents, as well as medical and nurse practitioner students in various clinical settings. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time with his partner, eating breakfast for dinner, and traveling.
Ashwin Patkar, MD, MRCPsych, DFASAM, DFAPA – Immediate Past President (Term 2022-2024)
Dr. Ashwin A. Patkar is Chief of Avance Psychiatry, Raleigh, NC and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago. He was formerly Professor of Psychiatry and Community and Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, NC and Associate Professor and Associate Medical Director of Substance Abuse Programs at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia. PA. Dr. Patkar has over 25 years of clinical and scientific experience in addiction, dual diagnoses, and pain and addiction. He is Certified in Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, Addiction Medicine and Pain Medicine. Dr. Patkar has been listed in the Best Doctors in America continuously since 2009-2020. He holds unrestricted license to practice medicine in North Carolina and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Dr. Patkar has published over 250 scientific articles, 6 book chapters and has given over 400 presentations and invited lectures at national and international meetings. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatry Association (APA), President of North Carolina Chapter of ASAM, the Past President of the Indo-American Psychiatric Association, and member of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, American Academy of Pain Medicine, Indian Psychiatric Society, Royal College of Psychiatrists and World Psychiatric Association. Dr. Patkar is married with 2 children and enjoys fishing, yoga, squash, and cricket.
Erin W. Barnes, MD – Secretary (Term 2023-2025)
I am an internal medicine physician who became interested in the intersection of infectious diseases and addiction medicine during my Wake Forest fellowship. At that time there were very large numbers of patients suffering and dying from injection drug use-associated infective endocarditis; they presented with both unique epidemiologic features as well as difficult clinical management challenges. I pursued a Masters in order to be able to better study the epidemiology, clinical difficulties, pathophysiology, and treatment strategies for complex infections in this patient population. I currently co-treat addiction in certain infectious disease patients and hope to continue to grow our capabilities. I am also the co-director of the Wake Forest Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Treatment team and work to effectively, efficiently, and safely manage infections requiring prolonged antimicrobials in a home or rehabilitation setting. We continue to explore how to better incorporate our patients with substance use disorders into this outpatient antimicrobial practice.
Elisabeth Johnson, PhD, FNP-BC, CARN-AP, LCAS – Treasure (Term 2023-2025)
Dr. Johnson is a Clinical Assistant Professor at UNC and is the primary provider for prenatal and well-woman gynecologic care (including family planning and treatment for STDs) in the Horizons’ OB-GYN clinic. She received her BA from UNC Chapel Hill, her BSN from Columbia University, her MSN from Emory University, and her PhD from Georgia State University. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Thorp provide Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) with buprenorphine for pregnant opiate-dependent women seen in the Horizons OB-GYN clinic.
“These are important times for NCSAM. Our hope is to gain insight, opinion and share educational opportunities with our NC based medical colleagues to increase NCSAM membership in the process.”
