As ketamine clinics spread, so do start-your-own-business courses, sparking concern

As ketamine clinics pop up across the U.S. to offer experimental infusions for depression, anxiety, and a slew of other conditions, training programs to teach providers how to run these businesses have also started to appear. They promise to teach everyone from anesthesiologists to advanced practice nurses the ins and outs of ketamine, which has been used for decades as an anesthetic but is still under study as a therapy for psychiatric disorders.

The doctors and nurse anesthetists offering the courses say they’re urgently needed to try to bring some standardization to the booming ketamine treatment business. “I think [ketamine] is going to get wider spread use in one capacity or another. I’d like to see that be done appropriately,” said Dr. Gerald Grass, an anesthesiologist who runs the , a training about how to use ketamine to offer training. They fear some of those signing up for the programs might be trying to break into the business to make a quick buck.