Clinical Management
The Oregon Poison Center is a resource for health care providers throughout our region.
As the toxicology experts for the region, the nursing and physician staff of the poison center provides ongoing consultation and case management assistance to health care providers managing patients who have experienced a toxic exposure. An Oregon Poison Center medical toxicologist is on call 24 hours per day to respond to complex toxicologic cases. Our poison center provides ongoing consultation and follows patient progress with the treating health care provider to assist in evaluating diagnostic tests, clinical laboratory and EKG findings.
2010 Medical Consultations:
- 10,246 toxicology patients managed in health care facilities with OPC assistance
- 7,693 consultation requests received by health care providers
- 3,483 patients referred to health care facilities by OPC staff
- OPC assists in managing 25-40 hospitalized patients each day
- 1,794 consultation requests from police, Hazmat and EMS personnel
Professional Education
The Oregon Poison Center is a training site and educational resource for health care providers with the goal of improving the quality and effectiveness of the care they provide to patients experiencing a toxic exposure. As an academic program of Oregon Health & Science University, the poison center has the opportunity to teach students from many health care disciplines. Emergency medicine residents as well as medical, nursing, paramedic and pharmacy students obtain on site training here at the poison center.
The physician and nursing staff of the Oregon Poison Center provides professional toxicology education through lectures, conferences, medical journal articles and didactic learning experiences.
Our goal is to provide educational guidance by providing:
Toxicology Fellowship
The Oregon Poison Center and Department of Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University offer a Medical Toxicology Fellowship Program. This fellowship is a two-year training program for physicians who are already qualified in a primary specialty recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. The program is designed to prepare the fellow for board certification in medical toxicology.
Oregon Poison Center Conferences
As a comprehensive toxicology resource center, the Oregon Poison Center holds educational conferences each week. These conferences play an essential role in educating students, emergency medicine residents, nurses, and toxicology fellows. Our goal is to make these resources available to increase the understanding of clinical toxicology and literature assessment among health care providers. Podcasts of select monthly journal club reviews of articles from the literature, discussed by the faculty, fellows, and residents of the Oregon Poison Center are available here at the Toxicology Journal Club Podcast page.