Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology

Overview

Justin Berk, MD MPH MBA is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, in Pediatrics, and in Addiction Medicine. He is a core faculty member and clinical educator for the combined Internal Medicine - Pediatrics residency program and researcher in addiction medicine in carceral settings.

Dr. Berk graduated from Yale University and received an MPH from the Yale School of Public Health. He completed medical school at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center School of Medicine and received his MBA from the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech. He completed his residency training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Combined Internal Medicine – Pediatrics Urban Health Residency Program in Baltimore, MD.

As a clinical educator, Dr. Berk has used novel pedagogies for medical educaiton including serving as a Producer for the Internal Medicine podcast "The Curbisders" and creating a Pediatrics podcast, "The Cribsiders" which has reached over 1 million downloads.

As a clinician, Dr. Berk believes in low-threshold buprenorphine initiation having prescribed medication for addiction treatment from a primary care office, a mobile health unit, over the phone, and in jails and prisons. 

As a researcher, Dr. Berk received a NIDA-funded K23 Career Development Award exploring the use of injectable buprenorphine in correctional settings. He is a Pilot Project awardee from the The Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) on Opioids and Overdose. He has written over 40 peer-reviewed publications related to clinical medicine, addiction, and correctional healthcare in New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Academic Medicine and other high-impact journals. He is the author of the book chapter “Health Effects of Incarceration” in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Dr. Berk previously served as the Medical Director for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections.

Brown Affiliations

Research Areas