The Ketamine StartUp Podcast

This week we are reaching back to our very first season to resurface a conversation that has stayed with us. And there is a reason we keep coming back to it. There are a lot of conversations about the mechanics of opening a ketamine clinic. This one is about the why behind it. Dr. Glareh Imani is a board-certified emergency physician who opened Nameen Infusion and Wellness in Goodyear, Arizona aft...

This Soundbite from the Vault packs three genuinely useful sections into one digestible clip, and each one stands on its own. It opens with something most emergency medicine physicians quietly wonder about before making the pivot: what does it actually feel like to work in a ketamine clinic after years of shift work?  Dr. Nico Grundmann, founder of Ember Health in New York and an emergency ph...

Clinical Disclaimer: This episode is for educational purposes for licensed healthcare professionals and is not individual medical advice. Ketamine and esketamine are not FDA‑approved for preventing or treating postpartum depression; any use in this population is off‑label and should be considered investigational and undertaken only with appropriate training, collaboration, and adherence to current...

In this episode from the vault, we’re going back to when Sam gave a presentation at the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Scientific Assembly, making the case for why emergency physicians and clinicians are uniquely positioned to successfully practice in the ketamine therapy space. This is not a generic overview of ketamine. It is a frank, evidence-based conversation directed at clin...

Dr. Lowan Stewart is not just someone who opened a ketamine clinic. He is someone who built the infrastructure for an entire country to access it. In this conversation, Sam sits down with Dr. Stewart, an emergency physician who co-founded the first ketamine clinic in New Mexico in 2016, brought ketamine therapy to Norway two years later, established the first public ketamine treatment unit in Scan...

In this Soundbite from the Vault, we're revisiting a carefully selected segment from a live conference presentation we gave to a room full of ketamine therapy specialists, walking through the exact marketing framework we've built and refined over the years. Not familiar with our Soundbites from the Vault? These are shorter, standalone segments from earlier episodes that we think are worth revisiti...

We're taking it a little easy in July, and in the spirit of that, we're launching something new: Soundbites from the Vault. These are shorter, standalone segments from earlier episodes that we think are worth revisiting, easy to digest, and immediately relevant to your practice. For our first soundbite, we're revisiting one of our favorite conversations from Episode 32 with Steve Gelberg, author o...

This week, host Sam Ko goes upstream from our usual clinical and business topics to sit down with Dr. Roberto Malinow, emeritus professor at UC San Diego, member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, and one of the world's leading researchers on synaptic plasticity and NMDA receptor biology. His work has been cited more than 30,000 times, and his recent per...

In this conversation, Dr. Marc Smith shares his journey from hedge fund trading in New York's financial district to building an integrated ketamine psychiatry practice in California.  After three years in finance doing trading and sales, Dr. Smith made the bold decision to completely pivot his career toward medicine, driven by a desire for purpose and meaning that his financial career couldn'...

In this conversation, Dr. Michelle Weiner shares her evolution from chief resident in interventional pain medicine to pioneering integrative practitioner who treats chronic pain through a biopsychosocial-spiritual lens. Double board-certified in Interventional Pain Medicine, Physical Medicine, and Rehabilitation, Dr. Weiner reveals why traditional procedure-focused approaches often fail chronic pa...

In this news roundup episode, we're covering four major developments that have emerged in recent months, all pointing toward increased accountability and oversight in the ketamine and psychedelic therapy space. This isn't our typical interview content - it's breaking news analysis that every provider in this community needs to understand. We start with the final chapter of the Matthew Perry case,...

In this conversation, Dr. Ruchir Gupta shares his unconventional journey from established anesthesiologist to successful pain medicine entrepreneur. After 10 years of practicing anesthesia, he made the bold decision to return for a pain fellowship at Mayo Clinic, where he was older than most of his attendings. Dr. Gupta's story shows how strategic career reinvention can create competitive advantag...

🚨 Content Warning: This episode contains discussions about mental health challenges including suicidal ideation, psychedelic substances from cultural and therapeutic perspectives, and occasional strong language. Listener discretion is advised, as some content may not be suitable for all audiences. Please prioritize your well-being while listening. If you or someone you know is struggling with men...

In Part 2 of our conversation with Charles Miller from Scenic City Neurotherapy, we get into the practical side of his controversial "collective lie" thesis from Part 1. Charles walks through his MSKIT (Minimally Stimulated Ketamine Infusion Therapy) approach, explaining when he believes therapeutic integration should actually happen: weeks after treatment during the neuroplasticity window, not du...

In this first part of what became a two-part conversation, we sat down with anesthesia provider Charles Miller from Scenic City Neurotherapy for a discussion that challenged so many assumptions about ketamine therapy. Charles presents what he calls the "collective lie" in ketamine therapy - the argument that the obsession with psychedelic experiences and mystical insights for a growing segment of...

Every ketamine clinic goes through predictable life cycle stages, just like human development. And understanding which stage you're in changes everything about how you make decisions. In this episode, we introduce a framework for understanding the four distinct phases every ketamine clinic experiences: infancy (startup survival), teenage years (identity formation), prime adult years (optimization...

What happens when a 20 year mental health veteran has her own existential crisis then undergoes her own psychedelic therapy? In Inna Zelikman's case, it completely transformed how she practices medicine. Inna Zelikman, RN, MS, ANP, PMH-NP, is the Director of Integrative Mental Health at Recovery Without Walls and a MAPS certified MDMA practitioner. Five years ago, her own psychedelic healing journ...

We're breaking into our regular schedule with urgent news that affects everyone in the ketamine therapy space, not just Texas providers. On January 2, 2026, the Texas Medical Board published proposed regulations in the Texas Register that could fundamentally change how ketamine therapy is delivered in the state. These would be the first comprehensive regulatory rules specifically for ketamine ther...

Welcome back to the Ketamine Startup Podcast! It's great to be back with you for our first new episode of 2026. After sharing a couple episodes from the vault in December, we are excited to dive back into fresh content. In this episode, we tackle the most frequently asked question we get: "Do I need to be present in the room during every ketamine infusion?" This isn't just about regulations. It's...

We're continuing our holiday break from regularly scheduled programming to bring you another foundational resource: the patient communication strategies that transform ketamine therapy from a clinical procedure into a truly healing experience . This episode originally came from one of our mastermind sessions with students from our Ketamine Startup 101 course, where we dove deep into patient prepar...

We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming for the holidays to bring you something a bit different: a foundational episode that covers everything you need to know about ketamine therapy in one comprehensive resource. Sam originally delivered this presentation to the UCLA and Betty Ford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and it's become one of those episodes that medical professional...

Dr. Randy Frederick isn't your typical ketamine provider. As a former military flight surgeon and EM physician, he's spent nearly several years developing a "psychospiritual" approach to ketamine therapy. And his perspective challenges a lot of the conventional thinking in this field. In this conversation, Randy shares his evolution from following traditional clinical protocols to building somethi...

What happens when an ER physician and a psychologist both hit burnout at the same time? In Dr. Jack Hay and Dr. Harry Pepper's case, they decided to build something different together. In this episode, Dr. Hay and Dr. Pepper share the real story behind opening Oberlin Ketamine Clinic in Ohio. Including their unique physician-psychologist partnership model, how they've made personalized music a cor...

Remember when you were a hospital employee and licensing was just... someone else's problem? Yeah, those days are over. When you open a ketamine clinic, you're suddenly responsible for every license, permit, and regulatory checkbox that used to magically get handled by administrators. And here's the thing, get this stuff wrong and you can expect delays. In this episode, we break down the exact lic...

Running a ketamine clinic? Clinical skills alone won't cut it. You also need to protect your practice from regulatory and financial landmines. In this compilation episode, two experts break down the complex world of DEA compliance and insurance coverage for ketamine clinics. Whether you're about to open your doors or already treating patients, understanding what triggers regulatory scrutiny and ho...