Dr. Lawrence Mendel retired from correctional medical care in 2018 after more than 30 years in the field. During his time in corrections, he served in a number of roles including state medical director, facility medical director, and staff physician in a wide range of facilities. In 2005 he trained to prescribe buprenorphine and subsequently worked with pregnant incarcerated patients with substance use issues. In 2017, he received additional training in addiction medicine and became board certified in 2022. From 2018 through 2022, he worked for a large, full service, community-based addiction treatment organization and retired in 2022. He subsequently completed training with NCCHC and began work as a Physician Surveyor for OTP programs.