In her time at PNWU, Dr. Heather Bird (Class of 2021) utilized some creative strategies to pursue her profound interest in psychedelic studies. She served as an Osteopathic Principles and Practices Scholar here at PNWU and leveraged her time during this yearlong fellowship to network and become involved in clinical psychedelic research trials across the country. Her story showcases how persistence and grunt work can lead to amazing opportunities.

How did you get involved in research?

Before medical school, I was involved in a serious car accident and experienced what could be classified as a near death experience (NDE). The surreal nature of the day led me to question what had created my perception of events pertaining to the crash and moments afterwards. This shift in perception I experienced was profoundly life-changing, and ultimately led to my pursuit of a medical degree.

In search for answers, I happened upon the work of Dr. Rick Strassman, a near death experience (NDE) researcher. Dr. Strassman hypothesized that dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a powerful endogenous hallucinogenic substance, is released from the pineal gland within the process of dying. By injecting experimental participants with DMT, he attempted to create a model for the NDE. These experiments, which took place in the 1980s, paved the way for the re-emergence of psychedelic research after having been banned as a Schedule I hallucinogenic controlled substance by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

With the hustle of the didactic medical school years, my curiosity was momentarily set aside to make time for board study. When my schedule opened up during my third year, I dedicated the gift of time to the pursuit of answers regarding my NDE questions from premed. I committed myself to reading an article a day to better understand psychedelics. It was like I created a personalized course and every day presented a new discovery of knowledge that led to even more questions.

I wanted to meet other people that shared my interest, and I found a psychedelic conference in Utah that looked promising. Hoping to save money (as a poor medical student, you’re ALWAYS hoping to save money…), I reached out to the event coordinators to ask about the possibility of receiving a student discount, or if I could trade time in some way to earn event entry. Dr. Reid Robison, Psychiatrist and Medical Director for NOVA Mind’s Cedar Psychiatry in Utah, responded to my inquiry! I was shocked at my luck and excited to be invited to a meeting with him to discuss possibilities for involvement in his psychedelic research.

During our meeting, Dr. Robison asked if I would be willing to do data entry for an ayahuasca project in exchange for entry into the conference. It was a huge task of entering thousands of handwritten responses to batteries of psychiatric questionnaires which had been filled out by participants of an ayahuasca ceremonial retreat in the Amazon. The repetition of data entry from those measures led to solid familiarity with these questionnaires. Because of the repetitive nature of data entry, not only did I inadvertently memorize the battery of questions asked, but I also became familiar with how to administer and interpret the answers.

What projects were you involved with over the past year? How much time did you commit to research?

After working on a few data entry projects, I was invited to work another study — this time qualitative. The investigation looked into the indications for and safety of ayahuasca from an Aya ceremonial leader’s perspective and was part of a bigger project to eventually develop best practices and guidelines for ayahuasca’s potential use in Western culture. There were 21 Ayahuascaros interviewed with a formalized script and the answers were analyzed for commonalities in practice.

I spent a large amount of my free-time working on our projects at Cedar’s Clinical Research office and helping where I could with other pharmaceutical trials at the clinic. One of the income sources for Cedar’s Clinical Research office is to act as a trial site for different pharmaceutical companies to test new psychiatric medications. This gave me a lot of exposure to various research protocols. The lead clinical research coordinator for the office stepped me through the long and somewhat confusing process of taking a therapy from concept to clinical trial.

While working on the Ayahuasca project, my principal investigators Doctors LaFrance and Robison received funding to develop and implement a protocol for what would come to be known as Emotion Focused-Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (EF-KAP). They invited me to co-develop the EF-KAP protocol, coordinate the project, and see it through the two safety and feasibility trials for the treatment of Anorexia Nervosa, restricting type (AN-R).

The amount of time I committed to research has greatly varied according to my rotation schedule. My involvement with the psychedelic research began during the scholar year where I would spend about 1-2 hours an evening reading a paper. The data entry assignments took up a lot of free time on the weekends and evenings during this year. Luckily, I had already taken all my board exams so I could direct my focus to research.

Protocol development occurred during the COVID lockdown and was a full-time job. I put in 8+ hours a day towards writing the protocol and supporting documents. Creating the electronic data capture database, recruiting and screening participants was also a full-time gig. Because PNWU allows for a lot of freedom to create your fourth-year schedule, I was able to schedule time dedicated to clinical research.

What surprised you about doing research?

The most surprising part about doing research was the networking and mentorship piece that evolves from it.

My deep dive into all things psychedelic medicine introduced me to the work of famous researchers within the space. These respected researchers are the mentors of my mentors and it was a great honor having opportunities to meet them on conference calls! Phil Wolfson, the grandfather of ketamine assisted psychotherapy, was just a phone call away for consult on protocol development. We referred to him as “Uncle Phil.”

The additional work and speaking engagements that come from a project were also mind-blowing. My PI’s and I were invited to give presentations for universities and interest groups. I was even invited to Zoom consult for a Robin Carhart-Harris MDMA protocol for Imperial College in London. I am such a ’fan-girl’ of his work and was beyond excited that they would ask me for advice on anything!

Were some things harder or some easier than you expected?

The hardest part about research for me was to keep everything organized. There are so many moving pieces to a project and as the project coordinator, I was recruiting, screening and scheduling participants. I also prepared for and helped conduct the clinical trial days, in addition to collecting and entering data into an electronic data-capture (EDC) program. Before the project began, I had to build the backend of the EDC by entering all of our protocol and surveys into this system. It was an enormous undertaking for one person and being naive to the process maybe made it easier for me to say yes initially. In addition, getting the project through a commercial Institutional Review Board (IRB) was also quite challenging. The IRB had over a hundred questions in the preliminary reviews that I had to find answers for. In addition to the questions, I also had to create supporting documents to accompany our application. Needless to say, this was a frustrating, yet incredibly valuable experiential learning scenario for me.

The easiest and most fun part of the research was the medication administration days of the protocol. In psychedelic medicine, set-and-setting is a huge determinate of outcome. The protocol used a mantra and breath work meditation to inform mindset and our setting was in a dimly lit peaceful room. I loved leading the meditation prior to administering the injectable ketamine. As the patient came back to reality, I was ready to record all that they had to say about their mind journeys. It was fascinating to hear about what they saw and did during their experiences.

What was your relationship with your mentors like?

I had been working on the data entry assignments for several months and had met Dr. LaFrance only by Zoom while working on the Aya guidelines project. When we got funding for the EF-KAP study, Dr. Lafrance flew out from Canada to Utah to meet me at the clinic. She and Dr. Robison offered me and another student rotating in the clinic the opportunity to assist with drafting the study protocol. Neither the student or I had any experience with drafting protocols. We worked for about a week together, having regular meetings with the PIs, and were asked to revise just about everything we brought to them. My peer became frustrated with the revision requests and backed out of the project. I ran into him almost a year later at a presentation I gave on the project and he expressed a lot of regret for not being more patient with the process.

The relationship with my mentors has been invaluable. I feel so lucky to have them in my corner as career coaches. As a rising research physician, they offered me a lot of autonomy to create content for our projects. There is something special about being in a mentor-mentee relationship that feels safe to try something new and make mistakes and then be given direction to revise and polish the work.

What advice do you have for other students looking to get involved in research?

If there is something in medicine that is really interesting to you, start reading about it on PubMed.

Our school offers a robust library of resources to learn from. Get curious and go find the answers in the literature. If the answers are not there, that presents an opportunity to create your own project of discovery.

Attend conferences on your specific interest and network with likeminded individuals. It can be scary to channel your inner extrovert, but take a chance at presenting your ideas to others who might want to support your vision. Additionally, be ready for and open to feedback on your ideas and work. Your first pass on a project paper will likely be met with many requests for revisions. This is a normal part of the research process and the lessons it can teach are invaluable. So often one can get caught up in wanting perfection on a first draft. I constantly have to remind myself to not overthink the process and just start writing.

Do you have future plans to conduct research or continue on with these projects?

There has been a lot going on in the last little bit. I have one paper in the peer review process related to EF-KAP safety and feasibility and a second paper pertaining to ayahuasca shamanic practices we are about to submit for peer review. There is also a plan to write-up a case study based off the data I collected on the caregivers of participants that participated in our EF-KAP study.

I also recently switched gears in research topics and picked up a mentor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Dr. Richard Lane, while on a sub-i in Arizona. We have a lot of shared interests and started writing a literature review together about an osteopathic concept called Somato-Emotional Release. This has all the potential to be the start of a project that can be developed over the course of my career. Only time will tell, but I am really excited about its potential.

This summer I will be starting residency at the Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal program affiliated with A.T. Still University, in Kirksville, MO. This program is heavy in academics and encourages research. I am hopeful that it will open a door for me to develop OMT psychotherapy protocols to be used in mental health settings.

Additionally, a protocol I envision writing utilizes psychedelics for creating the neuroplastic mind-state and then using OMT as a type of integrative psychotherapy after the psychedelic experience has occurred. It closely follows the protocol model I helped develop for Emotion Focused-Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy.

Heather Bird, DO

PNWU-COM Class of 2021

Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences

My Journey with Psychedelic Research