Starting a Ketamine Clinic: A Journey of Professional and Personal Transformation with Dr. Leslie Koenig
Synopsis: Dive into the insights of Dr. Leslie Koenig on the complexities and personal rewards of launching a ketamine clinic, as shared in our podcast. This blog highlights her journey; offering practical advice for newcomers, unique strategies that set her clinic apart, and the profound personal and spiritual growth that can arise from this venture.
This blog is an edited and adapted excerpt of the transcript from our podcast episode 4 - From Combat to Care: A Journey to Providing Ketamine Therapy with Dr. Leslie Koenig.
The fear mindset is a challenge you can face and overcome on your journey to starting a ketamine clinic.
Unexpected challenges in starting a ketamine clinic
Dr. Koenig [00:06:11]: I think the hardest part was really committing to doing it. The fear mindset that I had to overcome myself. It was just that once the decision was made, it felt like this is the right thing to do. So really the hardest part was knowing, “Am I capable or not? Is this what I want to do?” Also the fear mindset of “What will people think?” and overcoming that idea that someone somewhere that I don't know might judge me and really opening up to that.
It doesn't matter because I need to think about my patients first. That's who I truly need to have my integrity for. And I knew this could help based on everything that I had seen and experienced.
Sam [00:06:51]: That's really powerful because in medicine, it is very slow to change. And sometimes we are hypercritical of our colleagues.
Especially if they're doing something brand new and novel. I remember hearing the story about Dr. Semmelweis, who was the first proponent of hand washing back in the 1800s. Everyone was like, “This guy is insane. Don't wash your hands. You don't need to do this.” He was trying to convince his colleagues, “We need to wash our hands before we deliver these babies.” He showed them the data. He showed them the evidence. But still for like 50 years, I don't think anyone adopted that practice, which of course today is now very commonplace.
Dr. Koenig [00:07:30]: Yeah. Max Placnk said something like, “Science changes one funeral at a time.” If you think about it, how many patients or how many people need to die before people figure out that, “Oh, suicidality drops with ketamine.” How many people need to suffer decades of low quality of life with depression before we figure out we can fix you or at least substantially reduce your symptoms within weeks with ketamine.
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
When you start out, you must know your personal motivation for opening a clinic.
Advice for someone opening their own clinic
Dr. Koenig [00:12:47]: I think the key piece of advice that I would give someone looking to open their ketamine clinic is, “What is your intention?” And to know truly deep down why you are doing it? For me it was something that I realized I was good at, very capable of doing. I truly was already searching for something like this and it was just this perfect marriage when the concept of a ketamine clinic came my way. Because I've always had an interest in mental health.
Sam [00:13:30]: I love that because it's hard opening up a ketamine clinic, or it can be, and there's a lot of challenges, but if we don't have that, “Why am I doing this? What's my intention? What's my goal?” A lot of times we'll just say, “Ah, I don't really want to do it. I don't really care.”
Each person can bring their unique skills and interests to complement patient care when providing ketamine treatments.
How Dr. Koenig’s stands out with her holistic unique approach
Dr. Koenig [00:17:10]: We're the only one in our local region that does ketamine therapy, but I feel like I just put my entire self into every encounter. I bring my integrative mindset. I bring alternative approaches. For example, one thing that we do is aromatherapy and patients may not understand why. They may be like, “Oh, lavender. No, I don't need that.” I tell them, well, it's not just aromatherapy, but it's also practical - where I understand that control mindset. You want to know what's happening when it's happening. I know from the ER, many patients come in feeling like they have a loss of control. So we provide ways to give agency back to each patient through their treatment.
I have this array of essential oils. So they get to pick one and then they get to smell that as they go in, which goes into my meditation that I teach them And so that's the first thing they settle into with every treatment. So for me, it's kind of encompassing meditation. As they smell the essential oil, it gets stronger because they're becoming more sensitized to it. That's how you know the ketamine is really starting to take effect. It's almost one more little guidepost for them.
So not only are they focusing on a meditation that I'm doing, but they're able to breathe in the aromatherapy, realize this is getting strong, and set it down. It’s another guidepost, another way to ease them into it with some agency. We have all kinds of little things like that that we do for each patient that I haven't heard anybody else do. It’s just because of my core value of putting the patient at the center of our care with that compassionate mindset and really being detailed and intentional about every facet.
You will grow not only your medical practice and business, but also personally and possibly spiritually.
How building your clinic leads to personal spiritual growth
Dr. Koenig [00:20:00]: I never would have anticipated this, but my spiritual practice has gotten deeper as I've opened this clinic. I think that's just because that was an area of my life that I had neglected for so long being in the ER, and so I've really surrounded myself with a spiritual community. Some of these things come up that are just amazing to me - what I get to do for these patients and how soul filling it is.
That's been a wonderful way to open up a new side personally. I love it - to really connect with that as I'm helping others connect spiritually to themselves. It's funny how I ended up doing the same thing.
Sam [00:20:45]: Wow. Yeah. So as you're healing and supporting these patients of yours, in a way, it’s like healing yourself. It reminds me of this classic archetype that Carl Jung talks about: the wounded healer. Where the healer, by supporting and healing other people, they're able to process and heal themselves in the whole journey for both the patient and the clinician providing it.
Dr. Koenig [00:21:11]: Yeah. Absolutely. I never would have expected that. As you do unto others, so you do unto yourself. And so it's, as I'm healing others, I'm getting to heal myself.
If you enjoyed these excerpts from our wide ranging conversation with Dr. Koenig and want more - listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or on your favorite podcast platform. Watch the discussion on YouTube here.
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Dive into the insights of Dr. Leslie Koenig on the complexities and personal rewards of launching a ketamine clinic, as shared in our podcast. This blog highlights her journey, offering practical advice for newcomers, unique strategies that set her clinic apart, and the profound personal and spiritual growth that can arise from this venture.
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