Wounded Healers: Why Oncologists May Benefit from Psychedelics

I've had about a dozen surgeries over my cancer journey. Sadly, I've become rather ‘good’ at having surgery. One of my tactics is to have a personal conversation with the surgeon and nurses before they wheel me into the operating room. I tell them about my wife. My children. My work. I want them to see me as a human, as a father and husband and son, and not just a slab of meat ready to be carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

I genuinely believe that their ability to see me as a person improves the quality of my care. Much of my advocacy through Healing Cancer Journeys centers on this conviction: that seeing and treating people living with cancer as whole humans, not one-dimensional patients, will transform cancer care for the better.

But I need to confess something. As much as I've wanted my doctors to see me as human, I don't think I ever really saw my doctors as human. I didn't recognize my own shortsighted hypocrisy until my recent podcast conversation with Jason Konner.

Founder of Psychedelic Oncology, Jason is an accomplished oncologist and cancer researcher who practiced for over twenty years. But he's also a person. During our conversation, he described his burnout treating cancer patients at the height of COVID. He shared his tender experiences with his father's death. He revealed that he had been "dealing with depression and anxiety" and "was on three prescription medications for psychiatric purposes."

And my first reaction, if I'm being honest, was: Wait. Doctors take medicines too? They don't just prescribe them?

I am guilty of the same dehumanizing instinct I've railed against. Mea culpa. Mea culpa maxima. 

Seeing the Wounds Behind the Healer

Jason described the concept of the wounded healer to describe his experiences in medical oncology. He observed that nearly every oncology fellow writes about deep personal loss in their fellowship application essays. Jason points out that oncology seems to attract people who carry grief and are seeking to heal that grief by healing others. This is an achingly beautiful call to service. 

But as patients interacting with doctors: we see the healer, but often miss their wounds.

And Jason was willing to step outside the white coat and show us what it means to be human inside that role. His vulnerability shows tremendous courage and is a true gift for cancer patients.

Jason’s introduction to medical trauma came before medical school even began. As an undergraduate student volunteering in an emergency room, he was immediately pulled into crisis. A young man had been shot and killed. The staff needed someone to sit with the body until the family was ready. The undergraduate volunteer with no medical training was their best option.

"I had just shown up. I was totally green," Jason told me. "And I'm wheeled into this room with this young man who had been shot in the head. I didn't even know how to react. It was so much to be with."

A boy caring for a boy. Untrained. Unprepared. Alone with death.

"That was fairly traumatic," Jason reflected. "But it was the introduction to this is a whole messy, difficult world that you're entering into. And my approach was just to soldier on."

Soldier on. Because no one taught him how to process what he witnessed. And so began a pattern that would continue for decades: storing trauma as a medical oncologist. Witnessing death after death after death. Absorbing grief that had nowhere to go. 

The Cost of Soldiering On

Soldiering on. That phrase kept recurring throughout our conversation. The metaphor feels apt. Soldiers serve others at great personal sacrifice. Soldiers maintain distance from traumatic horror in order to do their job. Soldiers often carry wounds they don't speak about.

"A whole lot of unprocessed grief was stored in my body, in my psyche," Jason said. "It's inevitable that this happens."

The COVID years intensified everything. Jason described working through the height of the pandemic, when "the clapping for the heroes had long gone away, but we were still working our tails off."

By the time the worst had passed, he was depleted. "I was absolutely miserable," he told me. "Couldn't sleep. I couldn't take a deep breath. I was really in a bad way."

I am profoundly grateful for oncologists like Jason who soldier on. I would not be alive without physicians who sacrificed their own wellbeing to save my life. And also, we need to recognize what that ‘soldiering’ costs: the costs for the humans who are healthcare providers. The costs for the broader healthcare system. The costs for patients who need healthcare. 

‘Burnout’ isn't a medical diagnosis. Sadly, the medical system that creates the trauma doesn’t recognize that trauma, nor does it provide a framework for addressing it. Oncologists are simply expected to keep going. And when oncologists burn out, when the accumulated grief becomes unbearable, they often protect themselves through clinical detachment. They often stop seeing patients as people because that's the only way to continue doing their job.

Now, we arrive back where we began. If we want doctors to see patients as humans, we have to start seeing doctors as humans.

The Third Way

Jason described the impossible choice that healthcare providers face: "Be present, be caring, be compassionate and pay the price. Or keep your distance and be dissociated and pay a different type of price."

Be present and burn out. Or detach and disconnect. Two bad options. Pick one.

But Jason’s experience with ayahuasca revealed something else. "The ayahuasca experience presented a third option," Jason told me, "where I could be present, I could be compassionate, and not be depleted. I had never thought that was possible."

After his psychedelic journey, his tank became full rather than constantly draining. "I was able to give more because my tank was full," he explained. He could offer more because he wasn't losing himself in the giving.

Perhaps most striking: Jason didn't even recognize he was burned out until ayahuasca showed him. "I thought I was upset about a recent breakup or something else," he said. "But I was really, really burnt out."

The medicine helped him see what he couldn't see while trapped inside it. And this points to one of the most promising effects of psychedelic medicines: the ability to step outside of our default reality so that we can truly see that reality clearly. 

When Jason returned to practice, his patients benefited. "I was able to be more present with patients," he reflected, "to think more clearly and creatively, to express myself compassionately in a more genuine way, and also to talk about death and talk about spirituality."

There's a phrase Jason shared that has stayed with me: attention is the active form of love. That's what cancer patients need from their doctors. Not just clinical expertise. Attention. Presence. Love.

And that kind of attention is only possible when providers aren't depleted, aren't drowning in unprocessed grief, aren't terrified of the death they witness daily. 

The ‘soldering on’ theme continues to apply. Soldiers and veterans of war are discovering psychedelic medicines as tools for healing. Perhaps our medical soldiers begin to discover similar benefits. 

The Vicious Cycle and the Way Through

Doctors are people too. I'm embarrassed to admit that while preaching about seeing patients as people, I simultaneously failed to see doctors as people. My failure is counterproductive. When we fail to see oncologists as humans, they protect themselves through clinical detachment. They see patients as faceless cases. We see them as mechanical white coats. This is a vicious cycle of dehumanization that harms everyone.

It has to stop.

Psychedelics may show us another way. Yes, there are bigger systemic changes needed for healthcare to exist on that third path. But psychedelics can help us begin. They can help oncologists see their own burnout. They can help providers reframe death as a natural outcome rather than a failure. They can help infuse more humanity into a system that desperately needs it.

The wounded healers have been soldiering on for too long. It's time we saw their wounds. It's time we offered them healing too. Psychedelics may help initiate that process of humanizing cancer care. 

Let's journey together.