Dr. Arsalan Azam, a board-certified emergency medicine physician, is dedicated to expanding access to mental health care and community-based wellness, and we are grateful that he brings his experience to both the Foundational KAP Training Team and the End-of-Life and Existential Distress Training Team!
In 2022, Dr. Azam founded Daydream MD in San Diego, where he focuses on integrating psychedelic medicines with traditional behavioral healthcare and making this care accessible to marginalized communities. He has worked extensively with ketamine, and extended his expertise to consulting for practices involving psilocybin, 5-MeO-DMT, and ibogaine.
Early in his career, he worked in deeply underserved communities in Cleveland, OH, and Harlem, NY. He is also a practicing emergency medicine physician, and his experience helps him look at problems and solutions at a large scale. As he shares in this interview,
“I have always taken a population health perspective to my clinical work and psychedelic therapy is no different. I predict a revolution in behavioral health as legal access to these medicines expands, which will require a disruption of our traditional models of delivering care.
Dr. Azam, thank you for championing this vision and for your dedication to those who need it most. It’s an honor to share your insights with our community!
Tell us a little about your therapeutic practice and your vision for the world.
I run a practice in San Diego, CA called Daydream MD. Our practice there is focused on providing ketamine treatment, KAP, integrative psychiatry, talk therapy, and functional medicine. We’ve always aimed to create a practice that creates access to ketamine therapy by offering insurance covered services as well as innovative offerings like regular group ketamine treatments. Our practice also embodies an approach that community is medicine and that our role is to help our patients achieve self-mastery. We don’t heal them, they heal themselves and each other. The sorts of transformation that arise around ketamine-assisted therapy extend from that ethos.
I am also a practicing emergency medicine physician who originally trained in Harlem, NY and have practiced in underserved communities across the country. Prior to medical school, I also had a career in public health and international development, working on health economics research with the Poverty Action Lab and helping build community health worker programs in India. My work in ERs gives me unique perspectives about needs across demographics and socioeconomic strata. It’s like being in an episode of The Wire every time I walk into a shift. My work in public health always makes me look at problems and solutions at a large scale.
As a result of my previous experience, I have always taken a population health perspective to my clinical work and psychedelic therapy is no different. I predict a revolution in behavioral health as legal access to these medicines expands, which will require a disruption of our traditional models of delivering care. I am not a psychedelic exceptionalist and believe these medicines are tools, with benefits and risks. That said, psychedelic medicines, provided judiciously and skillfully can help address a range of needs, from conditions that have long been somewhat “orphan diseases” such as PTSD to helping people live more meaningful, authentic lives (as one of my patients put it best – “you don’t need to be sick to get better”)
What do you appreciate most about using KAP/PAT as a modality with your clients?
Easily my favorite aspect of it is that it empowers the client. While initially the process can be bewildering and they rely on us to guide them through the use of the medicine (dosing, frequency of sessions, navigating altered states), they quickly become experts in how to leverage ketamine therapy to maximize its benefit. This creates a deep sense of self-efficacy and centers them in the healing process, as opposed to passively receiving a treatment, taking a pill, etc.
I also love how powerfully KAP/PAT can address the needs of clients who have tried EVERYTHING else. These people have often been on 20 different meds, done TMS, therapy, gone to support groups, you name it, and are still suffering but find deep healing with these medicines.
What advice would you offer to a provider interested in starting to practice KAP/PAT?
Determine the population you want to serve, as it will dictate who you work with and how you provide services. The work is inherently interdisciplinary, so you will likely need to partner with others (prescribers, therapists, healers, nurses, etc), so make sure your values/vision align with these partners. Finally, make it part of your existing practice, not exclusively your practice. This is still a small, albeit growing field, so the volumes just aren’t there in most places and the work is also consuming, no one should be doing 8 hours of KAP, 5 days a week, it’s too much.
Is there anything else you would like to share with our community?
Enjoy the practice, you’ll likely get just as much out of it as your clients, and help us all push this field forward!
