Doctors get educated in an effort to curb opioid overdoses

Reining in opioid prescriptions is one strategy governments and medical providers have deployed to curb the overdose epidemic driven by opioids. A group of researchers found a even brief teaching video was enough to make a noticeable difference in prescription habits.

Pankti Acharya, a medical student at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, worked with a team of researchers who recruited 90 medical residents from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

They gave those residents a pre-video quiz designed to test their knowledge of opioids and pain management; the test included clinical...