FACULTY
Alicia Carrasco, MD
(she/her/hers)
Dr. Carrasco is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine. She completed residency at UCSF and stayed in San Francisco doing primary care and hospital work in the safety net system before moving to Boise. She helped implement primary care-based MAT services in San Francisco, Nampa, and the Boise VA. She has run numerous X-Waiver trainings, including regional trainings through the Society for General Internal Medicine, American College of Physicians and Project ECHO.
She is the site director for a national VA project evaluating the effect of Opioid Reassessment Clinics on patient outcomes and core faculty for the UW-Boise Internal Medicine Residency where she has created and implemented a substance use disorder curriculum that includes X-waiver sessions for all trainees.
She chairs the Opioid Safety Initiative and Pain Committee at the VA, which seek to prevent, diagnose and treat opioid use disorder. Her clinical work focuses on pain and substance use disorder overlap syndromes.
Andrea S. Christopher, MD, MPH, FACP (she/her/hers)
Dr. Christopher is a general internist at the Boise Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC). She is also Associate Program Director for the University of Washington (UW) Boise Internal Medicine Residency, as well as Clerkship Site Director and Assistant Professor at the UW School of Medicine. Her passion for health equity motivates her interests in medical education and clinical practice.
As an educator, Andrea supervises resident physicians and medical students in primary care practice. She tries to translate her interest in health disparities into teaching medical students and resident physicians how health policy and the social determinants of health impact clinical care of patients. As a clinician, Andrea is honored to serve veterans as a primary care provider at the Boise Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She has expertise in health disparities and health policy; Andrea is course co-director of “Advocacy 101”, a course for physician trainees in the Treasure Valley to learn about how physicians can engage in advocacy for their patients beyond the exam room.
Andrea graduated from the UW with a Bachelor of Science in Neurobiology with College Honors. She then completed medical school at the UW School of Medicine, with a clinical focus on Global Health. She completed residency training at the UW Internal Medicine Residency, during which time she rotated as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Melbourne School of Medicine. Andrea served as Chief Medical Resident for the newly formed UW Boise Internal Medicine Residency. She then completed General Internal Medicine Fellowship at Harvard Medical School, with a focus on health services and health policy research. During this time, she completed a Masters in Public Health at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health before returning to Idaho to work at the Boise VA. Since joining the Boise VA, she completed the Faculty Immersion Training in Addiction Medicine through Boston University School of Medicine.
Magni Hamso, MD, MPH, FACP, FASAM (she/her/hers)
Dr. Hamso is an internal medicine & addiction medicine physician. She is the Medical Director at the Dept of Health & Welfare’s Division of Medicaid, a part-time staff physician at the Boise VA, and a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington. Dr. Hamso attended Columbia University for medical and public health school and completed her residency at the Montefiore Medical Center Primary Care & Social Internal Medicine Residency Program in New York. Tired of living in the big city and ready for easier access to the outdoors, she moved to Boise in 2014. Prior to joining Medicaid in 2019, Dr. Hamso was Associate Program Director at the University of Washington-Boise Internal Medicine Residency. She also cared for largely uninsured medically and psychosocially complex patients and taught students and residents at a local FQHC. She has long been involved in advocacy around the opioid overdose epidemic and for several years served on the State Behavioral Health Planning Council, the Project ECHO Idaho Board, and as a volunteer consultant for SAMHSA’s Opioid Response Network. She still participates in the statewide Opioid Overdose and Misuse Workgroup, sits on the Treatment Courts Coordinating Committee, and gives regular medication for addiction treatment trainings through Project ECHO Idaho. Although she currently spends most of her time at Medicaid, she still sees patients at the Boise VA, caring for veterans with chronic pain and opioid use disorder.
In addition to seeing patients and participating in didactics with Dr. Hamso at the Boise VA, addiction medicine fellows have the unique opportunity to engage in a longitudinal advocacy and health systems rotation at the Division of Medicaid. Fellows spend one to two afternoons per week for 3- months at Medicaid, learning about Medicaid and assisting with pharmacy, drug testing and inpatient/residential SUD reviews. They also work with Dr. Hamso to develop an independent project related to their own interests in addiction as well as a need at Medicaid. Recent projects include assessing the impact of a first opioid prescription on long-term and high dose opioid use for opioid naïve Medicaid participants, as well as working with colleagues across the health department to design a new case management program for pregnant women with SUD, including facilitating stakeholder meetings with prenatal care clinicians, behavioral health clinicians, and current or previously pregnant women with SUD to inform the program.
Nari Hsiu, DO
(she/her/hers)
Dr. Hsiu received her BA in International Studies from the University of Washington and then worked as an ophthalmic technician before matriculating at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine. During medical school, she found her passion for working with individuals struggling with mental illness and addiction. She completed psychiatry residency at the University of Washington, Boise Track. She recently completed fellowship training at the University of Washington Boise and plans to work at the Boise VA Medical Center as a staff psychiatrist with subspeciality in addiction medicine. Nari enjoys anything lemon-flavored, bicycle rides on the Boise greenbelt, and spending time with her friends and family.
Michael Krug, MD
(he/him/his)
Dr. Krug has been fortunate enough to work in the University of Washington system since 2008. After internal medicine residency and a chief resident year at UW Seattle, Dr. Krug worked at the University of Washington Medical center as a hospitalist and as an Associate Medical Director overseeing quality improvement initiatives from 2012-2016. He and his family moved to Boise in 2016 and he has been working as a combined inpatient and outpatient physician, and as an Associate Residency Program Director at UW Boise Internal Medicine Residency. Dr. Krug’s professional interests include resident education and mentorship, quality improvement, and scholarship surrounding these areas. He is heavily involved in quality improvement efforts at the Boise VA Medical Center and leads the fellows involvement in iQIP projects. Dr. Krug enjoys family time, sports, and Game of Thrones.
Todd Palmer, MD
(he/him/his)
Dr. Palmer has been a family physician since 1989 and has been a faculty member at the Family Medicine Residency of Idaho (FMRI) since 1998. He achieved board certification in addiction medicine in 2015 and has been the faculty lead for development and implementation of the addiction medicine curriculum at FMRI and oversite of their controlled substances policies and protocols. He was the first Suboxone waivered provider at FMRI and championed the integration of a robust MAT program into clinical care at FMRI. All residents receive MAT training and are granted a waiver to prescribe buprenorphine prior to graduation. He is the medical director of the University of Idaho’s ECHO program on chronic pain and opioid abuse, recruited their expert panel, and has also used this forum to help train over 150 Idaho providers in MAT towards them getting their Buprenorphine waiver. He has been active in Idaho state policy related to controlled substances.
Dr. Palmer has developed an addiction medicine fellowship at FMRI and will serve as it’s program director.
Radha Sadacharan, MD
(she/her/hers)
Dr. Sadacharan is a board-certified family medicine physician with a passion for working with justice-involved populations and people with addiction. She completed residency at Swedish First Hill – Family Medicine in Seattle, WA, and a T32 research fellowship at Brown University in the Infectious Diseases division, focused on the intersection of justice involvement, infectious disease, addiction and primary care. Radha works with Idaho Department of Correction on population and public health initiatives, and with the local syringe service program to support their medical services, including low barrier buprenorphine. Radha serves as a healthcare subject matter expert for All Rise (formerly the National Association of Drug Court Professionals), and has served on multiple panels for Project ECHO, focused on addiction and correctional health, through the University of Idaho and University of Wisconsin. Radha teaches at Full Circle Health Boise and Nampa family medicine residency programs, and is always down to talk about music, food, and how awesome Philadelphia is.
Gavin Shoal, Ph.D
Dr. Shoal is a Transformation and Recovery Center SUD Psychologist. He obtained his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Kentucky in 2005. He completed his doctoral internship at the Cincinnati VA with emphases in substance use disorders and neuropsychology. He subsequently completed a post-doctoral fellowship with emphasis upon substance use disorder treatment at the North Florida / South Georgia Veterans Health System. Following his fellowship, he served for 10 years as Clinical Coordinator for the NF/SG VHS Psychosocial Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program (PRRTP), leading a team caring for Veterans with comorbid serious mental illness and substance use disorders. He joined the Boise VA in 2019 and has served with the Behavioral Health Interdisciplinary Program and the Transformation and Recovery Center. Dr. Shoal has published peer reviewed research in national Psychology and Psychiatry journals on the topics of substance use disorder etiology and antisocial behavior, especially amongst adolescents and young adults. He is currently pursuing an IRB-approved empirical investigation of factors that might predict severe relapse and hospital readmission following residential treatment for SUD. He is also passionate about workplace team development and the incorporation of physical health interventions (e.g. exercise programming) into holistic approaches to mental health care.