Biography

Kristian Konnerup is a psychiatric nurse and a consultant for Drug Assisted Rehabilitation and works at the hospital of Østfold, located in Norway.

Kristian’s interest lies within working with hard-to-reach patients who have a chaotic life. He has experience from working in a shelter with 47 homeless people in Oslo. He has also worked on Norway’s main hospital for forensic psychology, Dikemark, for 5 years.

Kristian’s drive is to help patients’ others may be intimidated and frightened by, in order to establish a therapeutic relationship with them.

He has recently made the first polyclinic switch from methadone to buprenorphine, on a patient nobody had seen for 5 years. Kristian has a strong belief in buprenoprhine as the best drug for opioid treatment, due to its safety profile and ease of administration.

Kristian has shifted his focus from working in the polyclinic to meet patients in their own homes. This allows him to meet more patients who would normally cancel, or don’t show up to their appointment at the polyclinic. This way of working with the patient is now being adapted by other polyclinics in the region as it is showing good results in retaining patients that are hard to reach.