This week’s Psychedelic Guide is Dr. Ketan Patel, Founder and CEO of Next Healthcare Technologies Inc., a high-tech, privately held, healthcare company that leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Machine Learning (ML) and a sophisticated Real-World Neurosciences & Psychedelic Data collection platform called Navigesia.
When did you first become involved in the psychedelic industry and why?
As a physician, I became passively involved in the industry back in 2008 while operating two busy chronic pain and addiction medicine practices in Ontario. A number of my patient were opting for non-traditional routes to their own pain and sobriety (ranging from cannabinoids, acupuncture, indigenous detoxification ceremonies, hypnosis, LSD, and in a few cases, mushroom/plant-based derivatives such as psilocybin and ayahuasca). I was always a fan of quantitative analysis, so I wanted to be able to tell the story of real-world outcomes purely through data. Obviously, there weren’t (and still aren’t) high-quality methods to capture the richness of the patient story through data.
I then had my very own altered state of consciousness (a highly vivid/lucid dream) where I caught a glimpse of how data could be gathered better. This realization awakened a path to go build an A.I.-based platform that interacted with people in such a way as to learn from them, much like we do person-to-person. After some industry validation that our idea could work and help clinicians and researchers, I assembled a team in 2014, and we literally set off to go build it.
I’m happy to report that we’ve been successful in doing just that. Today, our A.I.-driven Navigesia platform is on the path to becoming an industry-leading psychedelic information platform. After years of pressure-testing our applications in some of the toughest clinical specialties in healthcare (e.g. psychiatry/mental health/neurology/addiction/pain management), we are ready to make our toolbox fully available to psychedelic practitioners everywhere.
Do you, or have you taken, psychedelic substances?
Yes. I’ve been lucky to try and experience psychedelics many times, with some very experienced tripsitters and mentors. I am working my way up to a traditional Ayahuasca ceremony.
What’s your favourite psychedelic compound?
I don’t have a favourite per se. The various psychedelic compounds rightfully and expectedly offer different sensory and spiritual experiences and have brought me closer to different facets of my own truth and being. Most importantly, all psychedelics put me in touch with how rich life is, especially when I am losing sight of it.
In my limited experience:
PSILOCYBIN puts me in touch with my autobiographical journey and connects me to a sense of oneness.
MDMA connects me to the emotional layers and context that I hide well, helping me to forgive more (especially myself).
LSD shows me my functional and ego-driven self and helps peel away the one-sided stories I’ve lived by.
DMT has shown me that the path ahead is really just inward and that everything we need is contained therein.
Do your parents/family members know what you’re doing?
Most definitely. My family would say I am far more happier and empathetic after my trips. They now ask me when my NEXT trip is planned!
Have you had an experience with mental health/chronic pain?
Very much so! After years of failing to address my own childhood traumas ‘on-the-couch’ with two wonderful psychologists, I was fortunate to finally experience breakthrough leap moments after two sessions of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy* (this time, with an amazing underground psychologist in Ontario).
I was able to connect with my childhood and reframe how I perceived events in my past in such a profound, and transformative way. There have been lasting potent effects from this experience.
For me, and my family, experiencing this firsthand solidified this as real, and helped inspire me to shift my focus more heavily towards psychedelics, in any way I can support this field.
*For those interested, 3g and 6g doses respectively of P.mexicana strain, sourced in Toronto.
What’s your vision of the industry in 20 years?
Armed with much of the machine-assisted insights and data we are gathering now, coupled with traditional and synthetic biology & biochemistry, I foresee a bold future where we will incorporate these natural and synthetic compounds, not just in punctuated ways, but directly into our moment-to-moment existence.
Human+Psychedelics (along with other nootropics and psychoactives) will radically help us level-up in the way we experience life and engage with one another.
For some of us (you know who you are), this is already happening. We just need to accelerate this.
What are your biggest worries for the industry?
The attempts at locking down access to natural compounds through patents are highly destructive to access — and we should really be concerned with this. This is just another form of containment and regulation.
Who are your heroes?
Rick Doblin: for championing the re-opening of our research access to psychedelics.
Sasha Shulgin: for championing our psychopharmacologic understanding of these compounds.
Amanda Feilding: for just being a badass, and moving this field forward with her efforts at Beckley.
If you could create a psychedelic to do anything you wanted, what would it do?
I would love to see psychedelic compound elicit a purely tactile sensory experience which you could control (i.e. without the visual hallucinatory effects). That would allow users to connect to other kinds of media and experiences (music, art, food/drink, sex, meditation, etc), and bring a curated physical realm into it, at will.
We’d like to thank Ketan for being a part of the Psychedelic Guides series. Stay tuned for weekly profiles on leaders in the psychedelic industry.
The post Psychedelic Guides with Ketan Patel of Next Healthcare Technologies Inc appeared first on Microdose Psychedelic Insights.
