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Giving More Than Receiving with Dr. Sam Zand · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Papers podcast. My name is Gan.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interviewed are incredible people who've dedicated their lives. Good
0:07
Speaker 1: nice to meet you too, Thanks so much to take
0:09
Speaker 1: your time to do this. Big thank you to our
0:11
Speaker 1: sponsors and awesome, awesome you're supporting this show. Very casual here, Sam,
0:16
Speaker 1: We'll go for about thirty minutes, and my goal is
0:18
Speaker 1: simply to keep the opportunity to talk about your passion,
0:21
Speaker 1: your expertise, what you have going on. Obviously there's a
0:26
Speaker 1: lot you have going on. Towards the end, when I
0:30
Speaker 1: get down to asking what's the best way for people
0:32
Speaker 1: to learn more about you, that will be an indication
0:34
Speaker 1: that we're getting ready to close out. Okay, once we do,
0:37
Speaker 1: just hang on so I could say goodbye. All right,
0:41
Speaker 1: So questions for me.
0:44
Speaker 2: Uh now, maybe just a little bit about smographics if
0:48
Speaker 2: you know about it.
0:50
Speaker 1: I'm sorry about what.
0:52
Speaker 2: The audience profile.
0:54
Speaker 1: Well, the audience profile mental health clinicians of all kinds, consumers, survivors,
1:03
Speaker 1: mixtures of all those. Okay, great, okay, sorry, thanks.
1:07
Speaker 2: The angle of speaking as a psychiatrist and someone who's
1:11
Speaker 2: business of scaling this work, that would I think you
1:15
Speaker 2: hit that target.
1:16
Speaker 1: Well, Okay, all right, here we go. All right, so
1:22
Speaker 1: five four, three two and one, our folks, welcome back
1:26
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Very excited to have his me guest today,
1:29
Speaker 1: Doctor sam Zan Sam welcome, Thank you so much for
1:33
Speaker 1: having me. Awesome So. Doctor Zand is a holistic psychiatrist, educator,
1:37
Speaker 1: and entrepreneur dedicated to merging traditional psychiatry with innovative neuroplastic therapies. JOHNS.
1:44
Speaker 1: Hopkins Graduate and Professor of Psychedelic Medicine at UNLV, he
1:48
Speaker 1: founded Anywhere Clinic and Calm Clinic to expand global access
1:52
Speaker 1: to tell a psychiatry and introduce GOO care. From utilizing
1:56
Speaker 1: TMS and ketamine assistant therapy to leading philanthropic efforts through
2:01
Speaker 1: the Better Universe Foundation, Doctor Zann is a leading voice
2:04
Speaker 1: in the mental health revolution, focused on systemic reform and
2:08
Speaker 1: aligning personal mission with daily will being. Are Sam just
2:13
Speaker 1: a little bit about you before we get going, share
2:16
Speaker 1: with the listeners where you're from originally and where you
2:18
Speaker 1: are currently. We'll dive in abs.
2:20
Speaker 2: I grew up in Los Angeles. I was born to
2:23
Speaker 2: parents who are from Iran and going through what they
2:27
Speaker 2: went through in seventy nine with the Iranian Revolution. You know,
2:30
Speaker 2: trauma really becomes part of archerity. I grew up, I
2:33
Speaker 2: always say, with a tremendous love family of two older
2:37
Speaker 2: sisters or so doctors parents who just always showed presence
2:42
Speaker 2: and love in my life. But they went through a lot.
2:44
Speaker 2: And it wasn't until older I realized dynamics in the family,
2:49
Speaker 2: anxious patterns, traumatic patterns, things that as the youngest child,
2:53
Speaker 2: I'm just sitting there observing, learning and seeing, and then
2:56
Speaker 2: as I get into my adulthood and realizing, wow, I
3:00
Speaker 2: want to help. I want to change this. It's innately
3:02
Speaker 2: in me. And when you think about a dad who
3:05
Speaker 2: was working affiliated with the government at a time when
3:09
Speaker 2: they were overthrowing everybody in the government. My grandfather was
3:11
Speaker 2: the Minister of minds. They had to flee their country
3:14
Speaker 2: on really no notice, thinking they'd probably come back and
3:18
Speaker 2: everything will be okay, and they actually never got to
3:20
Speaker 2: come back. The trauma that that caused within a family
3:23
Speaker 2: structure and not really being talked about as trauma. Mental
3:26
Speaker 2: health wasn't the topic in our family. It was just
3:29
Speaker 2: these things happened. And because of that, I notice so
3:33
Speaker 2: many the need to create doctors out of all the children,
3:38
Speaker 2: right because doctors have this perceived sense of security. Even
3:43
Speaker 2: if you had to leave and go to another country,
3:45
Speaker 2: you could still find Right, those are the unspoken truths
3:49
Speaker 2: that motivated us. And seeing how then ever dealt with
3:54
Speaker 2: in the family structure, hows that or had ups and downs? Right,
3:58
Speaker 2: these are things we all go through, and I was
4:02
Speaker 2: just blessed enough to be able to turn it into
4:03
Speaker 2: a living, into a calling and be able to help
4:05
Speaker 2: people in their own struggles and find their best selves.
4:08
Speaker 2: And so that's really just my origin story. Father is
4:11
Speaker 2: an engineer, mom is a psychologist, So engineering the mind
4:14
Speaker 2: became kind of innate for me.
4:18
Speaker 1: You know, as you mentioned this, it's kind of hard
4:20
Speaker 1: to ignore the fact that your parents are from Iran
4:24
Speaker 1: and we're at war with Iran currently. How I don't
4:30
Speaker 1: know if you want to even step into this, but
4:34
Speaker 1: it's hard to ignore, is this it's got to be
4:37
Speaker 1: resonating very current. Yeah, at some level.
4:41
Speaker 2: With you, I lenyrun currently, you know, and they're going
4:44
Speaker 2: through a lot of turmoil. There's fear, there's excitement, there's change, chaos. Right,
4:50
Speaker 2: there's so many things happening. There's tragedy, there's death, there's loss,
4:55
Speaker 2: and to see this almost dormant fifty years now, you know,
5:01
Speaker 2: gaining a lot of attention on social media and news circuits.
5:04
Speaker 2: These are things that family's dealt with quietly.
5:07
Speaker 1: You know.
5:08
Speaker 2: We the push and pull between religious influence and government
5:15
Speaker 2: control and the people's culture and tradition. You know, there's
5:19
Speaker 2: nobody's right or wrong in this. There's so many perspectives,
5:22
Speaker 2: but right now we're seeing really the extremes of shadow
5:26
Speaker 2: of humanity, and I think that experience. We notice that
5:31
Speaker 2: this moves all of us, much of those with family
5:34
Speaker 2: and I wrong, We all see this on TV. We're
5:36
Speaker 2: all part of the human experience and connected in some
5:38
Speaker 2: way that when we see what happens in Ukraine in
5:41
Speaker 2: different parts of the world, and I wrong, you know,
5:44
Speaker 2: and the less we're spoken about parts of the world,
5:47
Speaker 2: it's a common effect I think on our collective conscious,
5:52
Speaker 2: the collective unconscious, and it impacts us whether we know
5:55
Speaker 2: it or not. This has been a trying time. I
5:58
Speaker 2: speak with a lot of Persian families who have you know,
6:03
Speaker 2: people they've lost tests recently, who have before this war
6:08
Speaker 2: became so mainstream and a daily topic, had difficulty traveling
6:14
Speaker 2: and out of their country to see their family. You know,
6:16
Speaker 2: there's micro traumas, there's macro traumas. There's so much going
6:20
Speaker 2: on here.
6:25
Speaker 1: We I guess you use this as as a as
6:29
Speaker 1: a realistic backdrop, an unfortunate backdrop for our conversation today.
6:35
Speaker 1: It's hard to ignore. But taking a step back here,
6:41
Speaker 1: you grow up, at what point are you thinking, Okay,
6:44
Speaker 1: I want to become a physician.
6:46
Speaker 2: Well, when I was a you know, teenager younger, ambitiously
6:50
Speaker 2: wanted to be a businessman. That was that was just
6:52
Speaker 2: in my heart. I wanted to create, manage, lead, and
6:56
Speaker 2: I was Since medicine, I've fought every I said, I
7:00
Speaker 2: don't want to go to be a doctor. We already
7:01
Speaker 2: have two doctors in the family. Let me do something else,
7:03
Speaker 2: And my dad would always say what are you going
7:05
Speaker 2: to do? We'd grab whatever the nearest thing was and
7:08
Speaker 2: be like, you're going to make pencils, Like why would
7:10
Speaker 2: you do that? Go be a doctor?
7:12
Speaker 1: A bit out.
7:12
Speaker 2: Of that, and Pops is right, you gave me good advice.
7:15
Speaker 2: And so I eventually found Vegas to be my med school,
7:20
Speaker 2: and that kind of made me more.
7:23
Speaker 1: But then we.
7:24
Speaker 3: Found imagine in Pietry, realizing that we can make the
7:28
Speaker 3: emotions on the mental stick spirit that has such a
7:32
Speaker 3: bigger ripple effect on our overall health, just us within
7:37
Speaker 3: the body, but within our social dynamic.
7:40
Speaker 1: So let's continue. So you were talking about kind of
7:42
Speaker 1: getting into medical school and then finding psychiatry. How how
7:46
Speaker 1: does that happen for.
7:46
Speaker 2: You more of the process of elimination. I think fighting
7:51
Speaker 2: being a doctor for so long, I just said, I'm
7:53
Speaker 2: not really into the body and learning all of this. Uh,
7:56
Speaker 2: Western medicine just wasn't appealing. But when I was introduced
7:59
Speaker 2: to psychiatry, I realized it was far from a science.
8:03
Speaker 2: It had a lot of art in it, It had
8:04
Speaker 2: a lot of inexact science, and that was more appealing
8:07
Speaker 2: for me. It just felt like a challenge. We're in
8:09
Speaker 2: the wild frontier of medicine when we're talking about psychiatry,
8:13
Speaker 2: and in my work now ten plus years, it really
8:17
Speaker 2: feels like the education comes from interaction rather than from
8:20
Speaker 2: reading or understanding science. It comes from understanding the energy
8:24
Speaker 2: that people present with and that was fascinating for me.
8:28
Speaker 1: So now part of my ignorance here. But when when
8:33
Speaker 1: you go in to medical school, western medical school, correct,
8:39
Speaker 1: you're under you're learning.
8:42
Speaker 4: Everything right, but obviously what you're doing seems to have
8:49
Speaker 4: more I mean it is even even to buy a
8:51
Speaker 4: more of a holistic approach. Is that difficult to declare
8:58
Speaker 4: to own, you admit when you're going through medical school
9:03
Speaker 4: or Yeah.
9:05
Speaker 2: I think in general, psychiatry has backlash, you know, rightfully.
9:09
Speaker 2: So it's a young industry and we've probably been doing
9:12
Speaker 2: things with archaic practices for far too long. It's an
9:15
Speaker 2: industry that's been guided by the pharmaceutical companies more so
9:19
Speaker 2: than any kind of objective research. You know, we don't
9:23
Speaker 2: have blood labs and images of the brain like the
9:26
Speaker 2: work we do. It's really the trials that drug companies
9:30
Speaker 2: put together. So I think there has been some judgment,
9:34
Speaker 2: some shame in the industry, and I'm not shy to
9:37
Speaker 2: talking about that because I'm really trying to be part
9:40
Speaker 2: of the change, trying to evolve this industry, help people
9:42
Speaker 2: realize that what we were doing in medicine, in any
9:46
Speaker 2: specialty ten twenty years ago was completely archaic to what
9:49
Speaker 2: we know about medicine now, especially in a field of
9:52
Speaker 2: brain science that's rapidly evolving. So to your point, I
9:56
Speaker 2: think speaking of things holistically can be off putting to
10:00
Speaker 2: some people because they think of quackery and just old techniques.
10:03
Speaker 2: But I would say we're using old techniques in what
10:05
Speaker 2: we're calling science. We need to merge the two, the
10:08
Speaker 2: Eastern approach the Western approach. Ancient civilization has been treating
10:12
Speaker 2: mental health for thousands of thousands of years without medicine,
10:15
Speaker 2: and so what does that look like? And bringing all
10:18
Speaker 2: of that into the field, I think just makes it
10:21
Speaker 2: exciting for this next generation of psychiatrists.
10:24
Speaker 1: In the bio, it said you were interested in kind
10:28
Speaker 1: of the mental health revolution starting that What does that
10:31
Speaker 1: mean to you?
10:32
Speaker 2: I think ten years ago it meant acceptance, it meant
10:36
Speaker 2: overcoming stigma. I think now it means overcoming patterns that
10:42
Speaker 2: have been rigid and embedded in our medical infrastructure that
10:46
Speaker 2: don't make sense in mental health. We need to undo
10:49
Speaker 2: those patterns, namely starting with our diagnostics. You know, you
10:53
Speaker 2: go to a doctor and your blood pressure is high,
10:54
Speaker 2: they diagnose you with hypertension. That makes sense, there's an
10:57
Speaker 2: objective reading. But if you go to the doctor and
10:59
Speaker 2: you say I have been feeling down, they diagnose you
11:02
Speaker 2: with major depressive disorder. They try you on medications, then
11:05
Speaker 2: they tell you you have a resistant depression because it's
11:09
Speaker 2: not responding to the medication. Now you're treatment resistant. You
11:12
Speaker 2: have an illness that doesn't make any sense to me.
11:15
Speaker 2: It never made sense when I first learned about psychiatry,
11:18
Speaker 2: and now past years in I really hesitate to give
11:21
Speaker 2: people diagnoses unless they ask me about it. Then we
11:24
Speaker 2: have a very open conversation that this is just a descriptor,
11:27
Speaker 2: this is not a lifelong disability, This isn't something that
11:31
Speaker 2: you have to create as part of your identity. And
11:33
Speaker 2: that can be challenging because then some people are hearing, well,
11:37
Speaker 2: that's how I've lived my life, and now you're telling
11:38
Speaker 2: me I'm wrong. And so there's a very gentle conversation
11:41
Speaker 2: that needs to happen when we're disrupting learned behaviors and
11:45
Speaker 2: trying to, you know, really create a neuroplastic event within
11:48
Speaker 2: the industry, right, create new mind expansive approaches.
11:53
Speaker 1: So when you were in medical school, were you thinking
11:59
Speaker 1: this way? Were you having these feelings? Were you as
12:04
Speaker 1: open as you are now talking about these things? Were
12:07
Speaker 1: you as engaging with people as you are now?
12:12
Speaker 2: I likely had far less tact and understood the nuance
12:17
Speaker 2: much less. I was much more rebellious. I was aggressive
12:20
Speaker 2: about it. I almost got kicked out of residency a
12:22
Speaker 2: few times because I couldn't hold it in. They started
12:25
Speaker 2: from their own patient psychiatry rotation. We're in the psych
12:28
Speaker 2: hospital now. My work is in the outpatient, you know,
12:31
Speaker 2: in the community, but in the hospital setting, I really
12:36
Speaker 2: I struggled and I still struggle to understand what it
12:39
Speaker 2: is we're trying to do here. You know, we're trying
12:42
Speaker 2: to save lives people who are suicidal. They need to
12:46
Speaker 2: be monitored. That makes sense, But we're mixing that population
12:49
Speaker 2: with people who are also just on rampant drug use,
12:52
Speaker 2: which I have empathy for that population, but they shouldn't
12:55
Speaker 2: be together in one room. Then we're mixing in the population.
13:02
Speaker 2: That just says, you know what if I say that
13:05
Speaker 2: I need to that I want to kill myself, well,
13:07
Speaker 2: then I get a bed, I get food, I get
13:09
Speaker 2: pre medicine, and again I have empathy for that population,
13:13
Speaker 2: but we're putting them all in one place, and then
13:16
Speaker 2: we're asking the insurance company how long can we leave
13:18
Speaker 2: them here and get paid? Once we can't get paid,
13:20
Speaker 2: let's try to get them out. And this is the truth,
13:23
Speaker 2: the hard truth about in patient psychiatry. This is what
13:27
Speaker 2: is leading our behaviors in the way that we approach
13:30
Speaker 2: care now, which we should be doing. It's difficult. Insurance
13:33
Speaker 2: won't pay, the medications don't work that quickly, the therapy
13:38
Speaker 2: doesn't work that quickly. We need to really get back
13:41
Speaker 2: to community integrative methods and look at holistic strategies and
13:46
Speaker 2: also recognize that suicide is a major major problem right
13:49
Speaker 2: now that needs more attention and just locking people up
13:52
Speaker 2: in a jail like hospital is not the solution.
13:56
Speaker 1: So you go through medical school, get out, what do
14:00
Speaker 1: you do well?
14:02
Speaker 2: Then I get into psychiatry residency. But during residency, first
14:06
Speaker 2: two years in patient, we're seeing hospital systems and all
14:09
Speaker 2: that final two years outpatient, I'm introduced to psychotherapy. I'm
14:13
Speaker 2: introduced to psychodynamic therapy. I had a medical director who
14:18
Speaker 2: was very into energy medicine. He showed us a documentary
14:22
Speaker 2: about people doing surgery not under anesthesia, but under meditation.
14:27
Speaker 2: I found that so fascinating, and so it was year
14:30
Speaker 2: three and year four residency, I said, I just need
14:32
Speaker 2: to get started. I need to start treating people in
14:34
Speaker 2: the community. We had moonlighting ability to start our own
14:37
Speaker 2: side work, and I just started learning from getting out
14:41
Speaker 2: there in the community and seeing patients in Las Vegas.
14:45
Speaker 2: We say it's you know, one of the kind of
14:48
Speaker 2: critical areas of mental health. It's kind of the epicenter
14:51
Speaker 2: of mania and a lot of addictive behaviors. And so
14:56
Speaker 2: I was able to learn from the community around me.
14:58
Speaker 2: We had the tragedy where we lost about sixty lives
15:01
Speaker 2: at a concert from a shooter, and still trying to
15:04
Speaker 2: figure out why can somebody, how can somebody get to
15:06
Speaker 2: that level where they are so angry, they're so upset
15:10
Speaker 2: that they take sixty lives in a mass shooting, you know,
15:14
Speaker 2: And you look at that case, and I had no
15:16
Speaker 2: involvement in that case. This is all speculation, but we have,
15:20
Speaker 2: you know, somebody who was very caught up in gambling
15:24
Speaker 2: and would notoriously lose fifty thousand dollars in video poker
15:28
Speaker 2: and things like that. You know, who let this man
15:31
Speaker 2: down that caused that much of a ripple effect. What
15:34
Speaker 2: did we do as a society where this man felt
15:38
Speaker 2: the need to bring all of his ammunition to a
15:40
Speaker 2: Vegas hotel. And this is what I lived with and
15:42
Speaker 2: saw close and personal. So it wasn't long before we
15:46
Speaker 2: created Calm Clinic, just a local Vegas practice statistically, we've
15:51
Speaker 2: seen one out of three hundred Vegas residents.
15:55
Speaker 1: And what was the purpose if I made what was
15:57
Speaker 1: the impetus? What was a purpose for creating that?
16:00
Speaker 2: It was to say, you know what, if we're dealing
16:03
Speaker 2: with mental health struggles, you don't have to go to
16:06
Speaker 2: a one size fits all system of start with an
16:08
Speaker 2: antidepressant and move down this algorithm. We can create a
16:14
Speaker 2: warm place where we lead with compassion, where we lead
16:16
Speaker 2: with empathy. I was told by my mentors to never
16:19
Speaker 2: touch a patient. All of a sudden, we have a
16:21
Speaker 2: clinic where it feels so warm and loving, patients request
16:25
Speaker 2: to hug us, and that people would say is a
16:28
Speaker 2: big no no. But I wanted to create a community
16:32
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas that said we're going to take care
16:34
Speaker 2: of our own night shift workers, sex workers, addicts, the unhoused,
16:39
Speaker 2: whatever it is, we're there for them. And we're right
16:41
Speaker 2: there on the strip. We're still there. We've been expanding.
16:45
Speaker 2: Now we're in over thirty states.
16:47
Speaker 1: This is real. This sounds amazing. You sound amazing.
16:52
Speaker 2: Come on, seriously, you know the reason you ask is
16:56
Speaker 2: this real? Is because people think you can't make money
16:59
Speaker 2: by doing this. So I'm not a philanthropist only I
17:02
Speaker 2: run a business, you know, I have run fifty sixty
17:04
Speaker 2: clinicians that work with us. I founded another practice where
17:11
Speaker 2: I think we've treated over twenty thirty thousand people. There,
17:13
Speaker 2: we've treated over fifty thousand people With Anywhere Clinic, scaling
17:16
Speaker 2: this out had to make sense. But our credo was
17:20
Speaker 2: the patient has to come first. The patient comes first,
17:23
Speaker 2: and the team comes second, and the business comes last.
17:27
Speaker 2: As long as we're profitable, that means our patients are
17:30
Speaker 2: thriving and our team is thriving. And my training was
17:34
Speaker 2: an entrepreneurship and management at Johns Hopkins. I really focused
17:37
Speaker 2: on how can we create systems that work, that are
17:40
Speaker 2: profitable and can scale and at the same time prioritize
17:43
Speaker 2: the impact we're trying to make.
17:46
Speaker 1: So is this where we have telepsychiatry?
17:51
Speaker 2: Yep, So we expanded into telepsychiatry. That excuse me, the
17:55
Speaker 2: parent company Anywhere Clinic. We've been around since twenty seventeen
17:59
Speaker 2: before or COVID and COVID allowed for regulation changes. Insurance
18:04
Speaker 2: accepted telepsychiatry now, whereas before we could only service rural
18:08
Speaker 2: communities with telepsych and there were other exceptions, so we
18:12
Speaker 2: were able to really jump on that wave. When it
18:15
Speaker 2: wasn't okay to go to your doctor or leave the house,
18:18
Speaker 2: we were all stepped in insolation. The social experiment which
18:21
Speaker 2: was COVID was so fascinating, but I think it brought
18:23
Speaker 2: us all closer to autonomous care. I can now see
18:27
Speaker 2: my therapist, my psychiatrist from the comfort of my bed.
18:30
Speaker 2: I don't need to leave. We introduced psychedelic therapy at
18:33
Speaker 2: home and really scaled out that industry to have the
18:37
Speaker 2: right safeguards in place, but also increase access allow Medicaid
18:42
Speaker 2: population to have ketamine therapy at home. So really excited
18:46
Speaker 2: about some of these changes. And I think there's just
18:49
Speaker 2: a lot of positive future innovations coming out in our industry.
18:54
Speaker 1: So what do you see as your personal purpose in
18:59
Speaker 1: all this, because as we're talking, as you're talking, I mean,
19:03
Speaker 1: there are so many questions coming up. It seems like, uh,
19:07
Speaker 1: you know, the mental health revolution, it just seems so
19:10
Speaker 1: gigantic and overwhelming.
19:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah it is. I mean, look, we've lost people,
19:17
Speaker 2: you know, I've I've loved and lost friends to suicide.
19:22
Speaker 2: I love, lost patience. We've had as a practice. I
19:25
Speaker 2: think we have to realize that at the end of
19:28
Speaker 2: the day, this is about restoring love and humanity. There's
19:32
Speaker 2: a time of division, there is right now a time
19:34
Speaker 2: of political turmoil, of economic prioritization over health and wellness prioritization,
19:42
Speaker 2: and for me to bring it back full circle. I
19:44
Speaker 2: grew up with so much love and saw so much
19:47
Speaker 2: trauma around me, but felt in some ways protected that
19:51
Speaker 2: it became my colony. Became clear through life experiences that
19:54
Speaker 2: I just need to give back that love to the world.
19:56
Speaker 2: And so what better way than to start within my
19:58
Speaker 2: profession and to share love with my patients, with my team,
20:01
Speaker 2: with the clinicians that we train and help them realize
20:04
Speaker 2: that love is a tool. Love is our medicine that
20:07
Speaker 2: we can give. That we should unlearn the clinical approach,
20:11
Speaker 2: the cold clinical approach, and we should really learn the
20:14
Speaker 2: community approach, in which there was a time that mental
20:17
Speaker 2: health wasn't as rampant as an illness state, a disease state.
20:21
Speaker 2: We had problems, we went to our elders, we went
20:23
Speaker 2: to nature, we went to our faith, We went to
20:27
Speaker 2: different forms of care that are now not even talked
20:30
Speaker 2: about within a clinical setting. So that really is my
20:33
Speaker 2: calling to just give back to the world. What I
20:35
Speaker 2: was given growing up.
20:37
Speaker 1: Is this perspective, this incredible perspective that you have, is
20:44
Speaker 1: it somewhat common? Is it increasingly common now in the world.
20:50
Speaker 2: I think optimistically, it's very common. Early in training, I
20:53
Speaker 2: think that our mental questioners really go in, you know,
20:58
Speaker 2: wide eyed and bushy tailed and really want to help people.
21:00
Speaker 2: And unfortunately we become jaded by the infrastructure of the industry.
21:04
Speaker 2: We become jaded by seeing the fact that our care
21:08
Speaker 2: is limited by insurance, and our care is limited by
21:13
Speaker 2: cost profile of the patient. You know, really, our mo
21:18
Speaker 2: is how can we provide VIP level care and at
21:22
Speaker 2: the same time give our Medicaid population that exact same care.
21:27
Speaker 2: And that's, you know, I think what we don't see
21:31
Speaker 2: as much. And so when you think about practitioners who
21:35
Speaker 2: are getting into this space, they're getting into it for
21:36
Speaker 2: the right reasons. Whenever I'm teaching to students or residents,
21:41
Speaker 2: I tell them, if you came into this industry to
21:43
Speaker 2: make money like that shows me you're not very bright.
21:46
Speaker 2: This isn't the easiest way to make money. This is
21:48
Speaker 2: a very hard way. It's an easy way to create
21:52
Speaker 2: a life of fulfillment. It's an easy way to love
21:54
Speaker 2: the work that you do every day, so it doesn't
21:56
Speaker 2: feel like work. But if your priority is to make money,
22:00
Speaker 2: then maybe we should get out of care as your
22:01
Speaker 2: primary service line and you can get into management, we
22:04
Speaker 2: can get into other things. But I think people become
22:07
Speaker 2: jaded for so many reasons, whether it's economic or the
22:09
Speaker 2: bureaucracy of the industry, or just the fact that you know,
22:13
Speaker 2: you look at these for profit companies that are not
22:16
Speaker 2: prioritizing the outcome of their patients. They're prioritizing their sho
22:20
Speaker 2: And a lawyer once told me this. I founded a
22:23
Speaker 2: company called Better You, and we had a little bit
22:26
Speaker 2: of just culture shift and direction shift, and I had
22:31
Speaker 2: a lawyer tell me, doctor zan, your primary responsibility is
22:35
Speaker 2: to the shareholder. And I said, no, you're absolutely wrong,
22:38
Speaker 2: it's to the patient. I took a hippocratic oath. This
22:41
Speaker 2: is why it's it's not an even playing field because
22:44
Speaker 2: those who didn't take an oath can practice different ways
22:48
Speaker 2: than that I want to, But I think it all
22:50
Speaker 2: comes out in the end because patients will find the
22:52
Speaker 2: right care and that will be the successful platform.
22:57
Speaker 1: Better what is the better You? Tell us a little bit.
23:00
Speaker 2: Better You in twenty twenty one, right after COVID realizing
23:03
Speaker 2: that ketamine therapy, a form of ketamine called spravado s
23:08
Speaker 2: ketamine was FDA approved for depression in twenty nineteen, which
23:12
Speaker 2: you had to be in the office, and then all
23:14
Speaker 2: of a sudden, offices shut down. So how do we
23:16
Speaker 2: help people now? There was a generic form of this medicine,
23:20
Speaker 2: ketemine now around for forty fifty years. So we found
23:23
Speaker 2: a model in which we can take a low dose
23:26
Speaker 2: oral absorption through a los ange or a trophy, use
23:29
Speaker 2: a delivery pharmacy, do a good medical history, a good
23:32
Speaker 2: psychiatric history, make sure that they're appropriate for the treatment,
23:36
Speaker 2: make sure they have peer support at home to monitor
23:38
Speaker 2: them while they're doing it, and then give them all
23:40
Speaker 2: the wrap around virtual care they need. We were charging
23:43
Speaker 2: one thousand a month and it was a time of
23:47
Speaker 2: pioneering in the industry. We were the third or fourth
23:49
Speaker 2: in the market, I think, and we're all figuring out
23:51
Speaker 2: different ways to do this now. We took the same
23:55
Speaker 2: service and better use a great program. I still have
23:58
Speaker 2: good friends there and I think that they're doing well,
24:00
Speaker 2: but we took the same service. I've since exited their program,
24:03
Speaker 2: and I said, we need to bring the same care
24:05
Speaker 2: to insurance, to medicaid to medicare to now one hundred
24:09
Speaker 2: and fifty dollars a month where you can do ketymine
24:12
Speaker 2: therapy at home.
24:14
Speaker 1: Wow Wow, And we're how do people access that anywhere?
24:21
Speaker 2: Clinic dot Com as our national psychiatry practice and we
24:25
Speaker 2: do everything from traditional psychiatry to more holistic methods, therapies,
24:30
Speaker 2: group therapies, a lot of different options.
24:33
Speaker 1: Okay, as we kind of close out here, as we're
24:37
Speaker 1: kind of the world is just inundated with trauma. It
24:43
Speaker 1: feels like, yeah, how do you how do you personally
24:48
Speaker 1: handle it?
24:52
Speaker 2: I think that we have to have faith in the
24:55
Speaker 2: greater good. With so much darkness around us, we can't
24:58
Speaker 2: ignore it. We can't be in denial. We can't even
25:03
Speaker 2: just say that we were going to eliminate it. It's
25:05
Speaker 2: part of humanity, the darkness of the shadow. Without it,
25:09
Speaker 2: we don't see the light. And I think that we
25:12
Speaker 2: all should be called no matter where we are in life,
25:14
Speaker 2: whether it's our priority is ourself, our family, our community,
25:18
Speaker 2: our business, our patients, we all should be called to
25:20
Speaker 2: give more than we receive. If we can do that
25:23
Speaker 2: through trauma, then we realize that giving is healing, and
25:27
Speaker 2: that we can receive as much as we want as
25:30
Speaker 2: well as long as we're just continuously giving. And I
25:33
Speaker 2: think that is the medicine I learned more than anything
25:37
Speaker 2: that is healing. We have a program called pay It
25:39
Speaker 2: Forward where if you can't if you don't have insurance
25:43
Speaker 2: and you can't afford our care, you can fill out
25:45
Speaker 2: application and kind of tell us about your situation and
25:48
Speaker 2: we'll see you through our charity program for free. But
25:54
Speaker 2: we don't like to stay free. We say you have
25:56
Speaker 2: to pay it forward. You have to do three acts
25:57
Speaker 2: of kindness in the community for some whatever it might be,
26:01
Speaker 2: and then write us a letter telling us what you
26:03
Speaker 2: did and bring that to us as form of payment.
26:06
Speaker 2: And it's not just to propagate good deeds, but to
26:09
Speaker 2: remind us, especially in our most difficult and vulnerable moments,
26:13
Speaker 2: that we still have the capability to give, to be
26:16
Speaker 2: there for someone else, and if we do that, then
26:18
Speaker 2: we're being there for ourselves, we're being there for the collective.
26:21
Speaker 2: So that's my advice going for anybody going through trauma
26:23
Speaker 2: is find ways to give, and you realize that you're
26:27
Speaker 2: just filling your cup by doing that, and the more
26:30
Speaker 2: you can fill your cup the more that we all
26:32
Speaker 2: can be there for each other.
26:34
Speaker 1: Awesome, Sam, what's the best way for people to learn
26:37
Speaker 1: more about you what you're doing?
26:39
Speaker 2: Absolutely? You can find me on My social handle is
26:41
Speaker 2: at doctor sam zand Dr sam Z a n D
26:46
Speaker 2: Anywhere clinic dot com. I see patients, you know. I'm
26:48
Speaker 2: actively seeing patients twenty hours a week. There may be
26:53
Speaker 2: a wait list for me, but our practice is full
26:55
Speaker 2: of tremendously wonderful, compassionate providers. Feel free to reach out
27:00
Speaker 2: to me on social media. I'm friendly. I can't give
27:02
Speaker 2: direct medical advice, but I will give education.
27:05
Speaker 1: Awesome. All right, we'll have all that linked up here
27:07
Speaker 1: at the show notes page at the Trauma Therapist Podcast
27:10
Speaker 1: dot com. Sam, you are amazing, my god. Really love
27:17
Speaker 1: to have you back at a later day. But thanks
27:18
Speaker 1: so much. Great talking to you all right, good.
27:21
Speaker 2: Time right now, And I appreciate the opportunity to speak
27:24
Speaker 2: on trauma and healing.
27:25
Speaker 1: All right, take care, appreciate you