OM DENNE EPISODE
We came into this conversation expecting to talk about safety, and left thinking about humility. Kelan Thomas has spent years studying the pharmacology behind psychedelics, and what struck us most is how often the loudest fears (serotonin syndrome, for one) turn out to be less clear-cut than the headlines suggest, while the quieter questions (what daily microdosing does over years, what a receptor signal linked to heart valves really means) stay genuinely open.
We talk about where ketamine's real risks appear and where standard therapeutic dosing looks low-risk, why the length of an experience may carry the length of its benefit, and how rapport, set, and setting can shape an outcome as much as any molecule. Kelan keeps returning to a harm-reduction frame: education over prohibition, informed consent, and the honesty to say we don't know yet. None of this is medical advice, and that's part of the point. It's an invitation to stay curious about the questions we haven't answered.
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About the Guest:
Kelan Thomas, PharmD, is a psychiatric pharmacist and professor at Touro University California, where his work focuses on psychopharmacology and the safety science behind psychedelic and psychiatric medicine. He trained in Cynthia Kuhn's psychopharmacology lab at Duke, with further training across UCSF, Michigan, and USC. He has published review papers examining serotonin-syndrome risk and the 5-HT2B receptor question tied to microdosing and cardiac safety, and he testified before the Oakland City Council on decriminalization. He approaches this field the way he talks about it: intellectually playful, literary, and humble about the limits of what the research can currently say.
A second conversation with Kelan, on music as pharmacology, is already in the works.
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Dr. Alya Ahmad, MD, FAAP
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alya-ahmad-md-0601b190/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shamynds/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shamynds
Website: https://shamynds.com/
Dr. Suraiya Simi Rahman, MD, FAAP
Website: https://palamedicine.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suraiya-rahman-palamedicine/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pala_medicine/
Too Curious MDs
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