Palliative Care Workshop Session – Psilocybin for End of Life Care
with Dr. Ryan Patchett-Marble, MD, CCFP, Assistant Professor NOSM
Thursday, January 20, 2022 – 8:00 – 10:00 a.m. EST
Dr. Ryan Patchett-Marble is a rural generalist physician based out of Marathon and assistant professor at NOSM. He is completing his Certificate in Psychedelic Therapies and Research from CIIS (class of 2021), and has completed other formal training programs with psychedelic therapy for both ketamine and psilocybin. He treated the first legal patient in Ontario with psilocybin-mushrooms for end-of-life psychological and existential distress, and is one of a handful of physicians that was granted legal access to psilocybin for experiential training purposes. Health-permitting, we are hoping to be joined by Tracey – the first Ontario patient to receive this treatment (and one of the first in Canada). She plans to share her lived experience with psilocybin treatment.
Topic Background:
Psychedelics pose a challenge to our conventional medical paradigms around mental and spiritual health. For example, RCTs out of Johns Hopkins, NYU and UCLA have shown that after only 1 treatment with the psychedelic psilocybin (found in “magic” mushrooms) – in combination with preparatory and integrative therapy – patients with life-threatening cancer experience immediate and substantial improvement in clinical outcomes such as depression, anxiety, hopelessness, demoralization, spirituality, quality of life and death acceptance. These improvements were related to the degree of “mystical experience” reported by the patients from the treatment, and were sustained to study completion (up to 4.5y in NYU trial). It is remarkable to observe that a substance can evoke a single experience that leads to lasting, positive change in mental and spiritual health. While psychedelics are being studied for numerous other medical indications, the first group of Canadians granted access outside of clinical trials were those with existential and psychological distress at end-of-life (August 2020).
This talk will cover the history of psychedelics and their re-introduction into mainstream medicine, biochemical and experiential mechanisms of action including the “mystical experience”, a summary of current medical evidence for its use at end-of-life, a description of how a typical psychedelic treatment is delivered, and a detailed case-review of the first person in Ontario (Tracey) to receive this treatment legally. We are expecting to be joined by Tracey (health-permitting), who will share her experience with psilocybin treatment.
By the end of the session, participants will be able to:
- Describe the terminology and relevant history of psychedelic medicine
- Summarize the medical evidence for psilocybin at end-of-life
- Apply knowledge to direct patient care
