Dr. David M. Novick

Dr. David M. Novick is a physician and published author. Until his retirement, he was a board-certified specialist in addiction medicine, gastroenterology, and internal medicine. He has extensive experience in providing opioid addiction treatment, starting in the 1980s when he took charge of an experimental program, Methadone Medical Maintenance, in which socially rehabilitated methadone patients were treated in doctors’ offices rather than in licensed clinics. Seeing firsthand how patients in recovery from opioid use disorder can advance in their careers, fulfill personal goals, and live productive and rewarding lives has been very meaningful to Dr. Novick. He is passionate about spreading the word that medications for addiction save lives.

Dr. Novick is the author of more than 75 medical publications, a majority of which deal with addictive diseases. His first book, A Gastroenterologist’s Guide to Gut Health (Rowman and Littlefield, 245 pp.) was published in 2017. This book explains modern gastroenterology to the general public. Dr. Novick’s advance was repaid, and he received royalty checks for three subsequent years. The book also received Honorable Mention in the American College of Gastroenterology Scopy Awards in 2017. Dr. Novick is also a 2014 Erma Bombeck Writing Competition Award Winner for his essay, Rose, the Tarantula. He is published in Hippocampus Magazine, Fix.com, and Ohio Lawyer.

Dr. Novick received his bachelor’s degree from Duke University and his MD degree from Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY. He completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, NY, a Fellowship in Liver Diseases at The Royal Free Hospital, London, England, and a Fellowship in Gastroenterology at Norwalk Hospital, a Yale University affiliated hospital in Norwalk, CT. He is Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine at the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine. He has been elected to Fellowships in the American College of Physicians, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He was a member of the Laboratory for the Biology of Addictive Diseases, headed by Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek, one of the founders of methadone treatment, at The Rockefeller University, in New York, NY, from 1984 until Dr. Kreek’s passing in 2021.

When the present opioid crisis began, Dr. Novick was living in Dayton, Ohio and practicing Gastroenterology. Ohio and nearby states were hit hard, and Dr. Novick felt a calling to become more involved. He obtained a waiver to prescribe buprenorphine and started his own addiction medicine practice, Return Ticket, LLC, which later merged with a mental health center; Dr. Novick led the expansion of their addiction practice from three patients to well over 100. He left the mental health center in February 2020, and when the pandemic hit the following month, he began interviewing people for this book. He retired from his gastroenterology practice on December 31, 2021.

Dr. Novick is on the Advisory Committee of Stop Stigma Now, an advocacy group for patients on medications for addiction treatment. He is editor of the Stop Stigma Now newsletter, which is distributed to over 10,000 people. He is also on the Speakers Bureau for Stop Stigma Now and has spoken on MOUD and stigma in numerous settings.

He lives with his wife in Stamford, CT, and New York City.