From the ER to Ketamine Clinic: A Physician Talks About What It Takes

Dr. Sandy Newes 21:12

and this is interesting, because, like, just bear with me for a second. I’m just kind of thinking about how, like, good, like, spa clinics have sort of, you know, figured this out too, right? Like, you go into, like, a nice spa, and they give you the bath, rube, it has the particular smell of the spa products, right? There’s this, like, kind of thing that kind of is conducive to that. And I feel like a lot of Academy clinics aren’t doing that. You know, it’s like bright lights and you sit there, you know, you’re like, laying on a hospital bed, or just like sitting there in a room, like you said, so, so and again, we’ll get into the cap piece, right? Because here’s I’m hearing you saying we’re specifically focusing into the ketamine treatment alone, without therapist. But what if you know, if you were going to give advice to medical providers, who are you know, this isn’t even the pathway training. We can talk about that too. But like, if you want to open a clinic where you are focusing on that patient care piece that you believe is going to maximize the likelihood they’re going to have a positive, lasting outcome, what do people need to do? Yeah,

Dr. Jonathan Leake 22:14

so I actually get this call a lot, you know, I’ll get, er, doctors calling me up and, oh, it looks you know, I like what you’re doing. And I’d like to give ketamine too, and how should I do that? And so, you know what they’re looking for is they want to hear like, Well, where do I get ketamine? And you know, what’s an infusion, and do I need a pump? And you know, what’s the dosing? Like, they’re looking for this really technical side, right? And I always start with the I start from the other side of like, hey, what’s actually really, really important that you have to learn, and it’s going to be tough because you’re an emergency medicine doctor, and you have to learn this side is, what does the container look like that you’re doing this treatment in? And you know, what is the set and setting? And you know, how are you really holding this space for people and realizing that you’re being part of a transformative journey for this person, whether you realize that or not, and so you have to at least be able to hold that space for them, you know, and how deep you want to go into the therapy side of it, how much you want to learn that and try to, you know, move towards cap. It’s kind of up to you, but you have to understand that at the very least, you need to be doing ketamine care, or ketamine therapy, which is, you know, holding that space for that person and making sure that you’re safely navigating through ketamine therapy with them.

Dr. Sandy Newes 23:23

They know what that means. Like, when you say, like, holding that space for them is a very, very common term in the psychedelic talking to, like, ER docs and people who are not in that world, or maybe, you know, are interested in that world, but not really familiar. Does that particular phrase have a lot of meaning? I don’t

Dr. Jonathan Leake 23:41

think initially, and it’s something that I end up, you know, diving into with them. Of you know, what that does mean, what some things that providers know and are good at that, you know, I do talk about is that we know about building rapport, yeah. And we know that building rapport is maybe one of the most important things in psychedelic therapy, you know. And I think you guys talk about that a lot in your training. Oh, yeah. And so what’s cool is that some of the people that are coming to this, like emergency medicine, doctors and anesthesiologists, one of the things we share is that we have to be good at building rapport very fast. Because I walk in, I meet you, you’re very, very sick. You have to, I quickly have to get you to trust me and think that you know me in some way right there, so you can trust and open up. And I think anesthesiologists have the same way. Hey, I’m Dr. so and so. I’m about to put you to sleep. I gotta get you to kind of know me and trust me a little bit in a few minutes, two minutes. Oh, wait. And then the other is that, you know, we’re trained on how to kind of control the energy in the room a little bit. One of my main roles in the ER is I have to be able to walk into a trauma room that is like chaotic and everybody’s running around, and have to quickly kind of bring the energy down and kind of settle that room so that we can move forward on a common goal. And so I talk to people about those basic tools, like, Hey, here’s two tools that you have that are going to be really, really awesome in this work if you use them well. And it helps to kind of. Frame some of those initial conversations of that, you’re going to sit and have an hour at least conversation with the client about their history, where they come from, and who they are, and then tell them about who you are and who this place is, so that their nervous system can start to settle into the place, and you can start to, you know, build that connection so they can trust you and open up and have a deeper experience. And then you’re going to have to, you know, support them through what might be challenging experiences during the infusion. And the more you can do that, the better they’re going to do. You know,

Dr. Sandy Newes 25:28

talk about, we talk about kind of a, you know, clear but soft authority. Like, I think it’s like, step into the like, we got this, without being, like, overbearing, yeah, or dismissive. And they’re like, Well, you know, we got this. You don’t need to attend. But rather that, like, airing like, like you would in an ER, we got, we’re here, you’re in, you

Dr. Jonathan Leake 25:49

know? And that, that statement of, like, we’ve got you, right? Like, I’ve got you, you know, you’re in amazing hands here. We are extremely experienced in ketamine. We’re extremely experienced in emergency medicine as a team. So we’re going to take beautiful, wonderful care of your body and be able to support you through this process and this journey. And it’s just, you know, we’re seeing as people can lean into that, you can watch them kind of, you know, melt into the chase in our first conversation, and see their anxiety starts to wash away. They start to kind of settle in. And now, guess what? They’re opened up for a deeper experience. You know, they’re able to kind of go inside more and kind of trust the ketamine, experience a little bit more, and get more out of it, right?

Dr. Sandy Newes 26:24

Yeah. So I’m hearing step into authority, show them that we’ve got you manage the energy of the room, right? Attend the variables that will help somebody feel safe. Which you didn’t say it exactly like this, but I’m hearing relationship being able to build support and prioritize that like we know in the therapeutic world that, you know, it’s a well established, you know, fact, I don’t know what the current, most current data is, but it was like 40 plus percent of clinical outcomes are associated with the ratings of the therapeutic relationship. I can only imagine that it’s the same in a medical setting. And that probably out there, absolutely,

Dr. Jonathan Leake 27:04

yeah, and that’s, you know, this whole placebo effect, right? I mean, that we see that, you know, it probably a lot of it is not necessarily placebo, but it’s a 30 or 40% of the response is due to the clinical care, you know, like kind of being able to hold the space and show that you care about someone and and that side of

Dr. Sandy Newes 27:20

it, you know, when you also said, meet with them for at least an hour going over history. So there’s some assessment skills, some interview skills, because I think that’s actually a place that a lot of physicians don’t really do, like, Why do I whole psychosocial history when we know that this is medically safe and there’s no medical counter indication? So let’s have at it.

Dr. Jonathan Leake 27:40

Yeah, and I really see that part, you know, I’m building all those like facts, the little checks that I need, you know, for my list. But I do it in a very conversational way, because I’m building the relationship at that time. And so it’s really I start off with, you know, hey, you know, welcome to dereve, and we’re going to sit here for the next hour. And first, I want to hear all about you and your story and how you got to be sitting here in front of me today. And then I’m going to tell you a lot of details about who we are and what this process is going to look like, you know. And we’re really kind of going to go through the details.

Dr. Sandy Newes 28:12

This is the cat. Hi, kitty, welcome. Sorry, so, yeah, yeah, so, and then, you know, what I’m hearing in there is kind of the secondary piece too, about, you know, how do you conduct it, and what questions do you have? And this is where we get into scope of practice. What’s important, you know? And I think people are pretty individualized on that, depending on their background, but also just, you know, what I find so critical is, you know, I want the person to feel known, like they feel like we get them at least some basic level. And of course, that’s a professional skill set. Like, do you really get somebody after an hour? Will if you ask the right questions and right Oh, focus on developing rapport and are really intentional with that, like, sure to certain. And I think,

Dr. Jonathan Leake 29:01

you know, people aren’t used to having that interaction with a physician, you know. And I get that feedback a lot of news. It’s really interesting, I think, for a client to sit with us and have a physician, you know, or nurse practitioners kind of say, Hey, tell me about you, and I’m going to just sit here without watching my clock or, you know, really, on some really tight time scale, and just hear your story. And I’m actually amazed at how well people do of like, summarizing their story into 15 or 30 minutes in the sessions. You know, there’s probably been less than a handful of people in the seven years that we’ve been doing this where I’m really starting to have to kind of reorganize them or pull them back in, but most people do a really good job of kind of summing up. And I think they just appreciate being heard of kind of they have amazingly complex stories before you end up at ketamine therapy, right? It’s not that I felt bad for a few days, you know.

Dr. Sandy Newes 29:47

Well, most people, let’s face it, I mean, most people, it is expensive. It’s a big event. You know, most people, this isn’t their first stop on the mental health train, like they’ve been through it, right? They’re looking for something. Different. So, well, so, okay, so kindness, care, build rapport with intention. And I would just add, because I know that you already do this, but I’ll add from every step of the way, you know, like the person who answers the phone, the person who greets them when they walk in, like, you know, it needs to be like, kind, caring, soft, safe, supportive, because we are setting the conditions that are going to be the most conducive for them to be able to go deeply in themselves in order to be able to have an experience, both pharmacological and experiential, that really frame their ability to make lasting changes in their life. I mean, is that? Yeah, I think that’s a view. It is that now it’s

Dr. Jonathan Leake 30:45

a beautiful summary. You know, we talk about kind of preparation, medical session integration, right? Or medicine session integration. And, you know, we talk in our practice, preparation starts the second that person you know finds three you know. So they end up at our website, or they end up on our social media, or they’re hearing about us from other therapists. And that preparation phase is already starting, right? So as you get to know me, when, when you reach out to our clinic, the tones of our emails, the tones of those phone calls, are already starting to kind of let you know who we are. Can you trust us? Can you feel comfortable in us? And the more that we’re building that rapport and container and, you know, safety for that client, the more the medicine session is going to help them, right? Because they’re able to kind of relax and lean into that and learn more about themselves. And then it all kind of just, you know, rolls into integration, and that kind of process of continuing that care, I think, right?

Dr. Sandy Newes 31:37

And so, you know, kind of switching a little bit, and that I would just plug like, you know, those are skill sets. Like, learning about what is preparation, learning about how to do a good medicine session, learning about integration on the physician side. Any kind of thoughts about that before we transition into the like, what is cap? And how do you integrate cap into your practice? Like, and those are words that we throw around, but, you know, kind of specifically for people that are new to the field, if you’re a physician and not a therapist, want to know, in kind of a nutshell about those pieces, about how to do those effectively?

Dr. Jonathan Leake 32:13

Yeah. I mean, I think that one way to look at for a preparation from a physician side is to think about doing like, a really, really good informed consent. You know, someone’s about to have a very complex procedure, you know. How would you sit down and talk to them, really hearing about one? How did they end up at this procedure? You know, what’s their story of getting here and then really, kind of making sure that they understand and fully know what to expect, you know, in a very, very deep way. And so, if you had unlimited time to prepare somebody, you know, for a complex surgical procedure, you know, how would you do that? And so I think you could start with some of those tools, because you really want them to know exactly what to expect. What is this going to feel like? And then I think that this is where experiential training is can be really, really helpful, because once you’ve experienced the medicine, it makes it easier, in some ways, to do this preparation phase, because you really kind of know what you’re telling the person to prepare for, right, right?

Dr. Sandy Newes 33:07

Healed, right? Yeah, you need to have, you know, the medicine. And our whole training program at living Medicine Institute is really founded on the principle that, like, yes, like, definitive, yes, right? It’s,

Dr. Jonathan Leake 33:19

I think it’s extremely important, and it it really refines the process, you know, and I think that that’s pretty foreign for medical providers, you know, we’ve talked a lot, a lot about this at the retreat, that for therapists, they’re very used to going through the certain type of therapy that they’re learning to give. But, you know, as physicians like I don’t have to have an appendectomy to give an appendectomy, or go through chemotherapy to, you know, give chemotherapy. And so that’s a pretty foreign concept to us, of like, oh, I should experience this, but it really allows you to have a deeper understanding. And, you know, maybe a comparison is that in medicine, if you’ve done 1000 appendectomies, then, yes, you have a really good idea of what to expect and what exactly that looks like. But it’s even faster if you’ve experienced it, right? You know that you really learn what to expect. And I think that that’s really important in this therapy. Of like, you know, if you’ve experienced then you know, even better, how to prepare the person for what’s ahead, you know, for

Dr. Sandy Newes 34:13

them, right? Well, so, and then, kind of moving into cap ketamine assisted psychotherapy, because therapists also do preparation medicine work and integration, like in your clinic. Do the therapist sit with the client during the whole medicine session? And are they talking much of the time? Because, although that’s another piece in the field that people like, no, no, we don’t talk during the medicine session, and it’s not how we do it, we do talk during the medicine session.

Dr. Jonathan Leake 34:41

So there’s a huge variety in our office. And so, you know, our general approach is that, you know, we really are trying to do wonderful preparation, telling the client what to expect, and then we encourage a very deep internal experience, you know, truly lean into that psychedelic experience of ketamine. And so we often do eye shades, noise canceling, head. Phones, and we always schedule so that one of us, either myself, you know, the or the provider on or the nurse, can be in the room with the person, so that we can support them throughout the infusion. And then, you know, we’re really on that recovery side. So as the person starting to come back, as they’re starting to kind of come through that psycholytic phase into, you know, kind of true recovery, we really sit with every single person, or, you know, starting to process with them, of, you know, what their experience was, and maybe helping them start to kind of pull some little tidbits out of like, you know, what can they start to integrate or start to work with, you know, which could be beautiful, but we have several therapists that work with us as well and do actual cap sessions. And so that is, you know, sitting in with the person with the understanding that there may be some therapy during infusion. And even though almost every single one of our therapists has done training through LMI, we see a significant variety in how that practices in client to client. And so some clients, I think, really have this opening from the medicine and want to kind of explore during the medicine session of, you know, talking and processing as the infusion is going on. And that works great. And then some clients really kind of lean into the psychedelic experience. And then, you know, maybe they’ll make one or two notes of, oh, remember to talk about this, or remember this came up. But for the most part, we’re really quiet. And then the therapy is happening really, kind of after that infusion, in the hour after, you know, the IV infusion, I think, is what we see a lot at our practice.

Dr. Sandy Newes 36:24

What would you say about scope of practice? And what I mean by that, specifically is you are talking about having your medical team sitting with during the ketamine and doing preparation and integration, and you’re referring to that as ketamine care, and then you’re also having therapists come in and they are doing their own form of preparation and integration, and there’s significant overlap, like we training program. And you know, one of the things we’re always like, you know, we don’t want medical providers to be thinking that they have the same training as therapists. And yet, it’s not that they can’t care and do good relational work, right? What are your thoughts on

Dr. Jonathan Leake 37:02

scope of practice with that? Yeah, I think it’s challenging. You know? I think one of the things that’s been really interesting from the research on psychedelic therapy is that we see that this really, this patient directed, patient centered therapy seems to be really, really effective in this work, and that’s certainly what we found in ketamine therapy overall. And I think what’s nice about that therapy is that it’s something that you can train a lot of people on. You know, you can train a nurse, you can train a physician. I think to do a lot of that, because it really is about, again, holding the space for the person you know, allowing them to explore their thoughts, feelings, emotions, deeper, maybe having some keywords and questions that you know, to ask to kind of guide them through that exploration and really helping them track, you know, as they’re kind of having that self discovery. And we found that allowing that kind of allows people to dive deeper and take home some messages, right? But I think where you really get into the therapy side is we see this particularly in trauma clients, you know, clients that have had, you know, significant trauma, and it really requires maybe a next level of skill. And we know that, you know, therapists that work in trauma often have very advanced training. Because of that, we also see a lot of somatic work come up in, you know, ketamine therapy. And you know, people get a lot of feels in their body, a lot of sensations their body, a lot of, you know, somatic release. And I think those are things that you really have to have specialized skill set to be able to, you know, handle and so I think that if you’re a physician, that’s like, hey, I want to do some of this, you know, I want to incorporate ketamine Plus Care, ketamine plus therapy, into my practice. That you need to realize that you’re probably not fully equipped for that, you know, initially. And so you need to do some deep level training on that, you know, whether it’s through an LMI type program, or, you know, Ci is, and going into psychedelic therapy and training, you know, from that side. And there’s some great, you know, trainings for that. But I think initially we don’t all have that, that skill set to kind of dive deep with clients. And so it’s a it’s, it’s tough. How do we balance that? Right? We know that after an infusion, we need to hold that space for the client. We need to probably give them the room to kind of process and hear what they, you know, what their experience was like, and kind of set them up for success in processing that. But I think that we also have to realize that, hey, we’re not therapist, and so I shouldn’t be, you know, deeply diving into their trauma and processing their trauma with them. And part of what we do on intake is we really get a good, I guess, feel for what is person that person support outside of grieve, right? So do they have a therapist? Do they have a psychiatrist? How are they going to process? And so we incorporate that into their care and their journey to make sure that we know where they’re landing, you know, after their infusion, right? Right?

Dr. Sandy Newes 39:39

Yeah, so sounds like for you, you’re not necessarily differentiating too much between the medical team and the therapy team. In terms of, it kind of depends on what the client comes in with and what you identify as their needs. Is that accurate? Yeah.

Dr. Jonathan Leake 39:54

I mean, I think that’s true to some point. I think that we’ve gotten good at identifying people that we know are going to need really deep therapy. Making sure that one of our therapist is involved if that’s the case. And so, for instance, if someone comes in with complex PTSD, I’m going to know that they’re going to need very deep care from a very skilled clinician therapist. And so there’s someone that I am either setting up directly for cap with one of the therapists that we know and trust that have therapy experience. I mean, have trauma therapy experience or making sure that they’re seeing someone for integration work between, you know, that is very experienced and knowledgeable, and our team is kind of extra careful, you know, with that client. So I think that we almost kind of triage a little bit, right? You know, if you’re someone with treatment resistant depression that you know, seems to have a good care team, you know, outside of us, then I think we do a lot of the work ourselves, and, you know, feel very comfortable in that and have seen great outcomes. But if you have complex, multiple diagnoses, then we kind of build this other team around you, right, to be able to support that even more.

Dr. Sandy Newes 40:54

I mean, one of the things I say to people, and I’m curious if you agree with this, is it’s very straightforward when I say it, but you know, the greater the complexity of somebody’s presenting issues, especially when we get into complex trauma and relational trauma, and kind of repeated, you know, iterations and repeated cycles of both symptom based and behavioral manifestations and difficulties in multiple domains. You know, the more complex those presenting issues are the more beneficial a well trained therapist is likely to be. I mean, do you agree with that? It sounds so simple when I say it, but, like, I think it’s a really good marker. No, absolutely.

Dr. Jonathan Leake 41:32

I think, you know, one of the things I heard in a presentation recently that stuck out to me was like, you get this thought that, like, a therapist has referred someone for ketamine therapy, and you’re like, Oh, this is going to be an easy one, but it’s actually it’s actually like to realize, no, this is a tough one, because this is someone that’s been seeing a therapist, you know, has had really good care for a couple years, and the therapist is saying, hey, they need something more, you know. And so it’s right, exactly, yeah. So it’s interesting to, I think, yeah, to be able to get really good at that triage of realizing, hey, what does this person need to fully complete this container of care

Dr. Sandy Newes 42:03

for them? So what makes a good ketamine clinician? And that might be cap right on the therapy side, it might be a medical provider, but you know what? What it you know you’ve been at this for a while now. What do you what are you looking for in team members? What do you think? What do you want to impart? Want to impart to the world? Like, you know, what makes it good? What makes somebody good at this work? And then, you know, what’s the role of training in that? Yeah, I

Dr. Jonathan Leake 42:30

think, you know, ketamine work as a provider, as a physician, is very, very challenging, because you have to be able to do a couple things really, really well, like, you have to be a really good physician, and so you have to be able to, like, safely take care of someone, right? And so, you know, that is this kind of medical side of the container, right? Like, how do I mix a ketamine infusion? How do I infuse it? How do I monitor vital signs during that, you know, paying attention, learning, yeah, yeah, strict protocols. And, you know, really sticking to your dosing protocol, you know, not adding other medications. And so kind of, you know this, following the literature and staying up to date on the literature side of it, I think, is really, really important. And then you also have to learn all this other side of like, well, how do I, you know, prepare somebody for this? What does the room need to look like? You know, what kind of supplemental items do we need in the room for music. What kind of music do we play? And so, you know, I think that it’s, I think one is just going into this, is you have to be committed to that, right? Like, I know I’m going to hold and balance these two things for people, that I’m going to take really, really good medical care of them, but I’m also going to realize that there’s a psychiatric and psychological component to this that have to be very respectful of and learn and care for and so, you know, you have to kind of see where your weak spots in that, and where your blind spots in that. And I think a lot of that is where training comes in, right? You know, to say, Hey, I go get some ketamine specific and psychedelic specific training so that I can, you know, learn more of that side. Like you may be a great clinician that’s worked with ketamine in many, many different ways. But how do you work with it in this way? And that requires some kind of specialized, you know, training and learning, I think,

Dr. Sandy Newes 44:07

right? And one of the things that we try to do is to really bridge the conceptual with the applied. So, you know, there’s the learning about the field, there’s the learning which is all important and great, wonderful, like, what is psychedelic assisted psychotherapy. What are the histories? What are the origins? What’s the research say? But then there’s the How to right, like, day to day. How do you actually work with the medicine, which I think is really sometimes overlooked,

Dr. Jonathan Leake 44:33

yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, you doing a training. But then also, you know, finding places that really seem to be doing it well, you know, whether that’s reaching out to, you know, people like us that have been through a lot of training and a lot of experience, and kind of saying, hey, who can I go visit or go learn about this from, but really seeing how this works and how it happens, and you know what the work actually looks like before you jump into it. So I think just as physicians, we have this tendency to really say, Oh, this is a medical procedure I would give. Buddy, ketamine. I know about a medical procedure. Yeah, I know how to give someone ketamine infusion. That’s easy. There’s just so much more, right? There’s so much more to it. To ketamine therapy. There really is a lot to it, you know, yeah, no, we’re good. I

Dr. Sandy Newes 45:12

love that. You’re saying that. So, you know, I want to ask you real quick, kind of, you know, you recently went to a conference. So, you know, what are some of the important findings. I mean, one of the things, and then just kind of, you know, what else kind of does the field need to know? I mean, one of the things I really respect about you and really have from the beginning is it really does seem like you really stay on top of the literature and stay on top of the science and and are really following these trends, these in the field about, you know, ketamine care, versus ketamine alone. And I know you just went to that conference, and just, you know, there were some data that you shared with us. So, you know, can you speak to that or anything else that absolutely,

Dr. Jonathan Leake 45:47

yeah. So, I mean, I got a great view into the two silos recently of like psychedelic medicine and ketamine medicine. And that November, I went to the annual conference on psychedelic therapy that’s put on by Mass General up in Boston. And then just last weekend, I went to the as KP three, which is the American Society for ketamine providers practitioners, and that was in Austin, Texas. And so, you know, you go to the psychedelic conference, and it’s really all about, you know, this research on psilocybin and MDMA, and you know, there’s some beautiful research on what kind of therapy do we do around this? And, you know, how do we hold this space for clients and seeing how people get better? But there was very little talk about ketamine and how to work with ketamine, right? And so then I go to this ketamine conference, and I think that the ketamine conference has come a long way in the last few years. You know, if you went to one three years ago, it was very, very scientific. And, you know, was just very much about, you know, what we talked about, this sterile idea of, like, you give people ketamine and they get better. And so I like that. The second lecture of the day was really about, it was called dissociating with ketamine. And it was about, you know, really therapy around ketamine. And, you know, how do we, you know, deal with the psychedelic experience that happens, and how do we support people through that? And then, you know, what kind of therapy works well with ketamine. And it was put on by a PhD level therapist, and that was a, you know, beautiful to see that kind of so high up in the, you know, almost a headliner, right in that work. And so I think that everybody’s kind of starting to wake up. And the real takeaway that they actually said at the end of the conference is that, you know, what we’re doing is not ketamine. We’re doing ketamine Plus Care. And I love that thought process, and I think it’s going to be a really important part of ketamine work moving forward is that we have to really figure out, how do we create this beautiful container for people that’s focused on healing and transformation,

Dr. Sandy Newes 47:39

that’s going to avoid those you know, or at least minimize the likelihood that these adverse psychological events that you know, the way Academy is showing up in ers is psychological events like panic attacks and things like that. It’s not and then that doesn’t even talk about the people who are too ashamed to go in. I was supposed to have this amazing experience, and now I’ve been wounded by it. And again, it’s not likely to be the physical, it’s like the psychological, and we have control over that absolutely.

Dr. Jonathan Leake 48:05

Yeah, and learning those skills to be able to support someone through a challenging experience, and actually, you know, help them find light and brightness and transformation in that is, it’s a difficult skill, but if you can learn it, you can be an amazing part of this care, you know. Yeah,

Dr. Sandy Newes 48:19

so kind of last little segment, what do you think the field needs? And, you know, what? What would you like to share? Like you’re in it, you’re, you know, you’re, you’re doing both those tracks, the psychedelic therapy and the ketamine care and the medical side. And you know, what does the field need and what do you want to share? What do you think is important for people to

Dr. Jonathan Leake 48:41

know? Yeah, I think my big takeaway from both these conferences and kind of where I’m at right now is just realizing that, you know, we are the founders in this field. You know, this is so early on, you know, 2016

Dr. Sandy Newes 48:54

I talk about it all day every day. I’m like, everybody who doesn’t do this, you

Dr. Jonathan Leake 48:59

know, we’re like, oh yeah, ketamine therapy, you know, yeah, that’s what everybody does. But, you know, to realize that it’s just 2016 2017 were the first clinics that were doing this, yeah? And, you know, you go to the National Conference on ketamine, and there’s like 500 people that are members of this, you know. And so we’re kind of like the founding, you know, fathers and mothers of this. And so it’s like to realize the responsibility of that is, I think, huge, you know, and so, but it also opens us up to say, you know, the others a lot of responsibility, but we also have this opportunity to bring this all together, to say, hey, what’s working in psychedelic therapy? And yes, ketamine can be used as a psychedelic and yes, ketamine is very safe, and we have some great research on ketamine. So, you know, it’s exciting to me. How do we bring that all together and work with this amazing medicine to transform people’s lives, and, you know, to kind of, I guess, spread the word on that so that we can kind of set these standards of like, Hey, this is how you work with this medicine, and how people get better and have lifelong transformation from it. You know, I

Dr. Sandy Newes 49:56

love your commitment to it. It sounds like it’s. Been a real positive journey for you? I mean,

Dr. Jonathan Leake 50:04

yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s, you know, I say I’ve done really cool stuff in the emergency department, right? Like, you know, just things that have changed people’s lives, but this is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in medicine. It’s just amazing to kind of watch people transform in front of your eyes, you know, as you do this work and care for them. So

Dr. Sandy Newes 50:19

I love that. Well, I really appreciate you, and I’m honored to know you, and I appreciate your time on this. And you know, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your expertise. For those who are interested, they can find you how,

Dr. Jonathan Leake 50:36

yeah, so Dérive. It’s Dérive Health but spelled like derivehealth.com and you can go there, and you can also reach out to me, jonathan@derivehealth.com as well. It’s Jonathan. I’d love to hear from you and connect, but thank you for all the work you guys are doing. This is amazing to be a part of, and I really appreciate you guys having me on Well,

Dr. Sandy Newes 50:58

thank you all right. Bye, everybody. We’ll look forward to seeing you again next time.

Outro 51:05

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