William Osler, M.D. for Psychedelic Medicine Key Opinion Leader
Boring is the new revolution.
Dear readers, the potential of innovative technology is here, and we need to downplay it. In keeping with my ongoing advocacy for “the rules,” I draft this missive.
I welcome Everyone in All Psychedelic Medicine Related Endeavors to this newsletter so they can take my excellent advice.*
* this advice has not been vetted for excellence.
I wrote an article recently. It was about the necessity of boringness in psychedelics.
This specific advice is about novel interventions in medicine. Getting them firmly ensconced in the mainstream is the way to prevent the haters from destroying the revolution all over again.
To be very clear, there is no need to hype psychedelic medicines’ potential. These drugs, as I mentioned, create mystical experiences—a profound belief in something greater than one’s self. No one needs to tell anyone how great it will be. The drugs do that themselves. The counterculture? It feels like a board complaint waiting to happen. The House of Medicine only wants to hear from the most culturally bounded institutions.
Physicians promptly interrupt patients in medical encounters. We don't get past 11 seconds. Doctor-splaining is like Mansplaining, absent any words slipped in edgewise.
I am introducing my proposed Key Opinion Leader: Doctor William Osler. Resurrect that dude. Keynote speaker. That is what appeals to the institutions that physicians look to for guidance. It would be comforting if he could have consulted for Eli Lilly, Novartis, and Pfizer and had a long list of related disclosures. Listen to how established Osler is:
"I have had but two ambitions in the profession: first, to make of myself a good clinical physician, to be ranked with the men who have done so much for the profession of this country . . . My second ambition has been to build up a great clinic …on lines that have proved so successful on the Continent, and which have placed the scientific medicine…in the forefront of the world.
—Bill Osler, M.D.
What follows is an email about an upcoming conference. It’s… off key. It drops the F-bomb. F…un. Cringe!
Don’t: Explore Fun. It’s not dignified.
Do: Embed Osler's resurrection in Apple Vision Pro. The only fun that matters will have a somber, defensible go-to-market strategy with a proven history of execution and an extremely conservative approach to regulatory compliance. Could there be well-executed stickers?
In keeping with the culture of medicine, these stickers should provide caution about adverse effects.
Imagine… a talk about psychedelics that is so conservative it’s appealing to regulators. It could be revolutionary only in the way that a new product from Apple is revolutionary. Apple goes to market slowly, and we can all be assured sober technologists will relentlessly improve the products. Medicine likes similar pacing. Psychedelic Medicine should stop trying to be the Blackberry—only to fail—and get on board with being the stodgy iPhone…it’s easy for a mom to use. It is palatable for Dads. There is a Genius Bar to explain things to you patiently. Our hand needs to be held. Safe, predictable, old, long safety track record. These terms are popular. They are popular with my mom and her phone. They are popular with doctors. Thus the need for a spokesperson like the great William Osler. Osler described his personal goals thusly:
“I want to cultivate such a measure of equanimity as would enable me to bear success with humility, the affection of my friends without pride, and to be ready when the day of sorrow and grief came to meet it with the courage befitting a man."
—Bill Osler, M.D.
Reassuring. There is nothing to see here. Who is with me?
—Owen Scott Muir, M.D.