Writing Case Reports

Writing Case Reports: Ketamine and Psychedelics

The world of ketamine therapy and psychedelic medicine is a rapidly emerging field. However, it is also in in its infancy (well, maybe toddlerhood). As such, it has a remarkably narrow and thin base of published articles. Most of the articles published are large Phase II and Phase III studies (psychedelics) or narrow articles (ketamine) that do very well reflect the reality that we face in practice with a diverse, highly co-morbid clinical population. One could say that the ecological validity of our evidence base is meager. What we really need are case reports to answer patient management and triage questions: Does ketamine work for the depression found in Parkinson’s (not sure)? Does ayahuasca offer benefit for delusional disorder (I really need to write that one up)? Can you use psilocybin with a Bipolar II patient (probably)?

What our field needs is for you, the engaged work force, to write up and submit case reports. These are not that demanding and can be quite enjoyable, if you are not in a rush. I have published a few of these and they are very satisfying professional projects. I love to do them with a colleague, to share the load and make for a collaborative endeavor. I put this section together for ASKP to inspire you to write up that case that intrigued you. We need more. We particularly need more on ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. Right now, we only have a handful of supportive articles for guidance and support. Psychedelic medicine is similarly impoverished. Case report and case series make up the mid-level of our pyramid of evidence-based medicine. While they hold little ground to a well-designed and run controlled trial, they carry more weight than expert opinion or extrapolation from animal studies.

In this tab you will find a few resources:

1. Short video with good overview.
2. Detailed videos with nice depth:
   
   1. Webinar | Tips and Tricks for Writing a Successful Case Report
   2. How to Write & Publish Case Reports
3. How to article
4. Writing Case Reports
5. Case Report Example

This is enough to get you started. You will be glad that you did this. It feels good to contribute to our profession in this manner.

Submitted by Scott Shannon, MD

2025 ASKP3 Expert Faculty