This is part 2 of our chat with Dr. Valorie Masuda who shares more details on how our current healthcare system in Canada works, and how it's not supporting "health" but rather supporting pharmaceutical companies.
Some of this information was quite surprising to us, including how she quit chemotherapy practice because of her own ethical dilemma. Not many patients are given a choice about living their last days how they want, but rather often recommended by doctors to make regular hospital visits.
It's sad that in Canada it's easier to request to leave your life behind than get mental health help in the ways we've described with natural resources and therapy.
This needs to change.
If you would like to learn more about psychedelic therapy please reach out to @TheraPsil you're in Canada. If you are looking to donate to future clinical trials, reach out and we can point you in the right direction.
Dr. Valorie Masuda is the first physician in Canadian healthcare history to prescribe magic mushrooms, and we got to sit down with her to talk about her groundbreaking work with psilocybin and psychedelic therapy for terminal illness patients. As a palliative care specialist, Dr. Masuda breaks down how the Canadian healthcare system focuses way too much on pharmaceutical care instead of holistic medicine and social determinants of health.
We went over crazy cancer treatment costs, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and radiation therapy expenses compared to basic stuff like food access, safe housing, clean water, family doctors, dentistry, and hearing aids. Dr. Masuda explains patient choice, patient autonomy, and quality of life decisions when it comes to end-of-life care, medical assistance in dying (MAID), and dying conversations.
She told us about mental health applications including trauma, depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, and substance use disorder treatment through psychedelics. We talked about the opioid crisis, underground therapy, ketamine therapy, MDMA therapy, and medicinal cannabis versus what the pharmaceutical industry pushes.
Dr. Masuda walked us through her clinical trials, Special Access Program (SAP) work, and how she's working with Victoria Hospitals Foundation for fundraising. She mentioned TheraPsil, legalization efforts, politics in healthcare, and why we need political courage for real healthcare reform.
Thomas Hartle's story shows how hard it is for patients to get psychedelic therapy. We covered default mode network research, neuroplasticity, consciousness studies, and healing trauma through alternative medicine and integrative therapy approaches.
Dr. Masuda got real about compassion fatigue, medical ethics, ethics in medicine, and humanity in medicine. She explained why she quit chemotherapy practice because of treatment costs and drug costs while patients can't even get basic social determinants of health.
We talked about prison rehabilitation, therapeutic jurisprudence, harm reduction, and community support models. Indigenous traditions, shamanic healing, and community care are totally different from the end of life denial and life extension priorities we see now.
Healthcare funding, medical research, therapeutic breakthrough potential, and medical innovation through psychedelic therapy could actually help with existential suffering, isolation, and mental illness. Dr. Masuda's work on Vancouver Island shows what compassionate care and medical compassion look like for terminal illness treatment.
We wrapped up talking about environmental factors causing cancer rates, prevention strategies, and building a grassroots movement for healthcare system change through this revolutionary approach to end-of-life decisions and substance abuse treatment.