Dr Medrano Shares Resources to Learn More About Psychedelics

Michael J Verbora, MD, MBA, medical director, Field Trip Health, asks Ben Medrano, MD, medical director, Field Trip Health, Toronto, Canada, to share educational resources such as training, conferences, and institutions for clinicians seeking to learn more about getting involved with psychedelic treatment options.

Dr Medrano is also the chief medical officer at Aleafie Health, and assistant professor at Seneca College, Ontario, Canada.

This discussion took place at the 2021 Psych Congress in San Antonio, Texas.

Read the transcript:

Dr Ben Medrano: Actually, that was a question I wanted to ask you because you're doing this training right now, right? You're at the California Institute of Integral Studies, [San Fransisco]. Maybe if you could tell me a little bit about your experience of doing that currently, and then we can maybe jump into some other ideas there. 

Dr Michael Verbora: Sure. I can tell you, as a family doctor who's interested in trying to step a little bit away from the biomedical model, I've been pursuing as much knowledge and education that I can to learn about the art of healing, because it really is an art, and there is no one-size-fits-all, which makes scientists and physicians a little bit uncomfortable. 

We like large sample sizes, we like studies, we like to be able to engineer a process, and that gives us a lot of anxiety when oh, my goodness, every single patient's going to have a different experience and I got to deal with that. 

Dr Verbora: We were talking about it over the weekend about this N of 1. Your focus as a clinician has to be on that one individual, and you can look at all the literature and you can look at all the science to guide you, but at the end of the day, the person in front of you may not best fit all that research and science. 

Part of my journey of becoming informed — and I don't know if I'll ever feel like I have enough wisdom or knowledge — experience ends up being the best teacher, but from an academic perspective, I've signed up for the California Institute of Integral Studies, which is a large academic approach to psychedelics. 

It's not just learning the art of healing, but also the research behind it. It's teaching you the fundamental approach to doing research in this field. What it looks like from a regulatory perspective, how you want to design studies? It's also about networking with this large academic psychedelic community who are starting to do these studies. 

That's probably one of the most fascinating projects or areas of research out there that you can get involved with. There's a whole bunch of other smaller groups that offer your weekend courses, or they offer more longer trajectory type of modules. I know Fluence is a great organization that's doing some work. 

Then, getting involved in grassroots and talking to people. There's all these amazing listservs. Whether it's in Boston or California, you see all these listservs creeping up, and so many people sharing these opportunities for online webinars. That's the stage that we're at. We have to just accept that. 

With time, this will start to scale, and you'll start to see more and more bigger conferences, and bringing in a lot of these leaders across the world who are doing some of this research. I think, as most people who are involved in this space will say, if it's a calling and it's meant to happen, it'll start to unfold. 

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Dr Medrano: We've talked a bit about CIIS, we talked about Fluence. I want to also mention a couple of others that I'm aware of. 

Dr Verbora: Please. 

Dr Medrano: There's Integrative Psychiatry [Center], [Niwot], also based out of Colorado, and [Psychedelic Research and Training Institute] PRATI, which is also based out of Colorado, headed up by Will Van Derveer, Keith Kurlander, and Scott Shannon respectively based on which organization you're looking at, and there's Polaris [Insight Center, San Fransisco, California]. 

I think you'd mentioned there's some places out on the West Coast, and the Ketamine Training Center, which is run by the guru of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, Phil Wolfson. 

These are all trainings that I've heard people say have been helpful for them getting the skills that they need. I'm curious about what you think the future of ketamine holds in regards to education, or not even in dedication, but just in terms of oversight.