FINDING MY SONG — The STORY BEHIND CANTO’S NAME AND WHY IT MATTERS
“Canto” isn’t your typical medical practice name. There’s no geographic reference, no clinical terminology, no alphabet soup of credentials. It’s simple, melodic, and deeply personal. The story behind it is one of burnout, transformation, and ultimately, finding my way back to why I became a healthcare provider in the first place.
The Unexpected Path to Psychiatry
My professional background might surprise you. Before specializing in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and psychiatry, I spent my career in emergency medicine and oncology—two fields that couldn’t seem further from psychiatry and psychedelic therapy. But here’s what I’ve learned: sometimes the most unexpected paths prepare us exactly for where we need to be.
One of the greatest gifts of being a physician assistant is the flexibility to move between specialties. I didn’t know it at the time, but every shift in the emergency department and every difficult conversation in oncology was training me for this work.
In the ER, I learned to develop and adhere to rigorous safety protocols. I learned to think quickly, to anticipate complications, and to respond to acute medical emergencies with clarity and confidence. These skills are invaluable in ketamine therapy, where safety is paramount. Ketamine is not without risks—it can acutely raise blood pressure, and chronic use carries potential side effects. My ER background means I never take these risks lightly. I know how to screen patients carefully, provide appropriate medical monitoring during sessions, respond to adverse reactions, and create protocols that prioritize safety without sacrificing the therapeutic experience.
From oncology, I learned something equally important but harder to quantify: how to sit with suffering. I learned to deliver difficult diagnoses with honesty and compassion. I learned to hold space for grief, fear, and uncertainty. I learned that healing isn’t always about fixing—sometimes it’s about bearing witness, about being present with another human being in their darkest moments.
These two worlds—emergency medicine and oncology—taught me to balance clinical precision with human compassion. They taught me that the best medicine happens when we can hold both the science and the soul of healing. This balance is the foundation of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.
When Medicine Became a Machine
For most of my career, I worked in academic medicine. I loved teaching, the intellectual rigor, the sense of being part of something larger than myself. But after the pandemic, something shifted.
I found myself burned out, depressed, and increasingly hopeless. Medicine had become a business, and I felt like nothing more than a cog in the wheel of a massive, impersonal machine. What I had gotten into medicine for—to help others, to truly connect with people—had been reduced to 15-minute time slots and a daily flood of MyChart messages. I became increasingly frustrated. This wasn’t the experience I wanted to be providing as a healthcare professional — and it wasn’t the experience I wanted as a patient, either.
There was no time for stories, no space for the human moments that make this work meaningful. I was documenting more than I was listening. I was clicking boxes instead of holding hands.
The system had changed and was no longer designed for or prioritizing healing—not for patients, and certainly not for providers. I watched colleagues leave medicine entirely. I considered it myself. But something in me resisted the idea of walking away from the work I loved. The problem wasn’t medicine itself; it was the way I was being forced to practice it.
Taking Back My Song
That’s when I made the decision that changed everything: I decided to walk away from that world and take control of my career.
The name “Canto” came to me during this transition. The word has deep roots—in Latin, “canto” is the first-person present form of “cantare,” meaning “I sing.” Not “one sings” or “they sing,” but “I sing.” It’s a declaration, active and personal. This same word flows into Italian and Spanish, carrying the meaning of “song” or “I sing.”
That first-person declaration felt essential. For years, I had been silenced by a system that valued efficiency over humanity. I had lost my voice, drowned out by electronic health records, productivity metrics, and the relentless pace of corporate medicine. But “canto”—“I sing”—is a reclamation. It’s the act of choosing to speak, to express, to show up authentically in my work.
I wanted my work to be my song—my unique gift to the world. Succeed or fail, I wanted it to be true, authentic, and mine.
For years, I had been singing someone else’s song, following protocols and productivity metrics that had nothing to do with why I became a healthcare provider. Now, I was choosing to reclaim my voice. I was choosing to practice medicine the way I believed it should be practiced: slowly, intentionally, with space for genuine human connection.
Creating Canto wasn’t just about starting a business. It was about remembering who I was before burnout, before the pandemic, before the machinery of modern medicine tried to flatten me into something unrecognizable. It was about standing up and declaring: I sing. This is my voice. This is my song.
The Deeper Meaning: Verses in a Larger Work
As I sat with the name “Canto,” I discovered it held another layer of meaning that resonated even more deeply with the work I do.
In literature, a canto refers to a major section or verse of a long poem—think Dante’s Inferno or Ezra Pound’s Cantos. Each canto is complete in itself, yet part of a greater whole. Each one builds on what came before and points toward what comes next.
This is exactly what ketamine therapy is.
Each ketamine session is a canto—a verse in the larger poem of your healing journey. Each session is meaningful on its own, with its own insights, emotions, and revelations. But each is also a piece of something bigger: the ongoing process of remembering who you truly are, or discovering who you want to become.
Just as a poet carefully crafts each verse to serve the larger narrative, we approach each ketamine session with intention and care. We prepare, we create space, we integrate. We honor the individual moment while keeping our eyes on the horizon of lasting transformation.
No single session “fixes” everything. No single verse tells the whole story. But together, session by session, canto by canto, we build something remarkable: a life more aligned with your authentic self, a relationship with your mind that feels more compassionate, a future that feels possible again.
Why This Work Feels Like Coming Home
There’s a beautiful synchronicity in how my background prepared me for this work. The clinical rigor of emergency medicine ensures that ketamine therapy is delivered safely and responsibly. The compassion learned in oncology allows me to hold space for the profound, often difficult emotions that arise during psychedelic experiences.
But more than that, ketamine-assisted psychotherapy has given me something I lost in academic medicine: time. Time to sit with patients. Time to hear their stories. Time to prepare carefully for each session and integrate meaningfully afterward. Time to practice medicine the way it was meant to be practiced—as a human connection, not a transaction.
Every time I guide someone through a ketamine journey, I’m reminded why I chose this path. I watch people reconnect with parts of themselves they thought were lost. I witness the moment when someone who has been numb for years suddenly feels again. I see the relief when chronic, treatment-resistant depression finally begins to lift.
This is my song. This is what I was meant to do.
Your Song Matters Too
Here’s what I want you to know: just as I found my way back to my authentic voice, you can find yours. Whether you’re struggling with depression, anxiety, PTSD, or simply feeling disconnected from who you truly are, there is a path forward.
Ketamine therapy isn’t magic, and it isn’t a quick fix. But it can open a door. It can create space for you to hear your own song again—the one that’s been drowned out by trauma, by mental illness, by the noise of simply surviving.
Each session is a verse. Each integration period is a bridge. Together, we’ll write something true, something authentic, something yours.
That’s what Canto means. That’s why I chose this name. And that’s the invitation I extend to every person who walks through my door: Let’s find your song. Let’s write your cantos, one verse at a time.
If you’re considering ketamine therapy and want to learn more about whether it might be right for you, I’d be honored to speak with you. Email us to schedule a consultation. Let’s explore what your next canto might be.
