Fresh Ideas: Mental Health Crises in the ER and A New Opportunity for Ketamine

Art: Fresh Ideas - Pablo Tesio

Can Ketamine Change Crisis Care?

I recently wrote an article for Psychedelics.com exploring the potential of ketamine in the emergency room.

Emergency Rooms (ERs) often serve as the frontline for patients, where life-threatening trauma and routine injuries collide in chaos. They’re also where countless individuals experiencing mental health crises end up when there’s nowhere else to turn.

You may think of ketamine as the ER's go-to drug for resetting dislocated shoulders or easing the pain of broken bones—and you’d be right. Traditionally used as an anesthetic, ketamine is now making waves in mental health care. It is also an ER physician’s common choice for patients with a history of opioid use disorder.

What if there were a way to bridge these practices and introduce ketamine as a tool for managing mental health crises in the ER? Am I proposing full-scale Ketamine-Assisted Therapy sessions in the emergency department? No.
But I am advocating for a means of providing rapid relief to patients in distress while simultaneously establishing supportive pathways for their care beyond the ER doors.

Are we currently too under-resourced for this concept to take shape? Perhaps.
But groundbreaking ideas are often met with a lack of resources, staffing, funding, and education before they become reality. We arent that far off, however, as patients are already receiving the drug in this setting.
It is precisely these kinds of “what if?” propositions that highlight the gaps in our system and inspire innovative solutions. If such an approach has the potential to improve patient outcomes, then we should at the very least take necessary steps to understand how we might make it work!

One thing is certain: our mental health system has failed far too many, and while physicians work tirelessly to serve their patients, they remain at the mercy of a system that is fractured at its core. It is only through fresh ideas, bold innovation, and a willingness to push boundaries that real change can happen. We owe it to ourselves—and to the generations that follow—to reimagine what is possible and strive for a future that is open to innovation; where compassionate, effective mental health care is the standard, not the exception.

Read the Full Article to get a sense of what I am suggesting and how I propose we could begin to execute.

Art by Ly Ngo