American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists & Practitioners, Founder and Medical Director of Houston Ketamine Therapeutics and Houston TMS Therapeutics
Sandhya Prashad, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist specializing in interventional modalities for treatment resistant disorders with a particular interest and expertise in ketamine therapy. She completed both medical school and psychiatry residency at Baylor College of Medicine. She has been in private practice in the Houston area since 2011 and has been utilizing intravenous ketamine since 2016. Dr Prashad has personally administered over 20,000 treatments with ketamine or esketamine. In addition to treatment with ketamine and esketamine, Dr. Prashad also offers deep TMS and ketamine assisted psychotherapy in her practice. She is particularly interested in combining treatment modalities to improve response to treatment.
Dr. Prashad is involved on an international level with furthering awareness and education regarding the safe and effective use of ketamine. She is a founder and the current president of the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists and Practitioners (ASKP3, www.ASKP.org) Dr. Prashad presents frequently on a national level both to the public and to other physicians regarding the use of ketamine for psychiatric disorders. She also serves on several advisory panels for ketamine related research and her private practice is a site for a PCORI funded trial comparing IV ketamine to intranasal spravato.
Board Member of American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists & Practitioners. Erin Amato, MD is an adult, child and adolescent psychiatrist and the Medical Director of Montana Psychiatry & Brain Health Center
Dr. Erin Amato, MD, was raised in Billings, Montana and attended medical school at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. Upon graduation from medical school, Dr. Amato was awarded the Lillian Orchow Prize for Outstanding Student in Psychiatry and was designated as an AMA Foundation Rock Sleyster Scholar.
She completed her internship and residency in General Psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center-Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, New York. She then pursued fellowship training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry through the NSLIJHS-Albert Einstein College of Medicine program in New Hyde Park, New York. She served as the chief fellow during her second year of the fellowship and was awarded the Clinical Excellence Award upon completion of her program.
After finishing her Child Psychiatry fellowship, Dr. Amato returned to Billings with her family to start clinical practice. She founded Montana Psychiatry in 2009 along with Drs. Deborah Malters, MD and Belinda Hartley, MD. In addition to her private practice through Montana Psychiatry, she has worked with AWARE and Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch (YBGR) to provide mental health services to children and adolescents in the region. She is currently the Medical Director of YBGR’s residential campus and community-based services. Dr. Amato is involved in regional and national activities for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and has served as the Assembly Delegate for the Big Sky Regional Organization of AACAP since 2010.
Dr. Amato has double board certification in General Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Dr. Amato is passionate about finding cutting-edge, innovative ways to prevent and treat mental health disorders that have not responded to traditional interventions. She received training in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and other non-invasive brain modulation techniques at the Brain Stimulation Laboratory of Medical University of South Carolina and has been providing TMS to patients in the region since 2015. She has been providing IV ketamine therapy for treatment of depression and other mental health conditions since April 2016. She is an integrative psychiatrist who looks to blend traditional treatment tools, like medication and talk therapy, with specialized integrative medicine testing, genetics, nutritional supplementation, and lifestyle education and interventions to design personalized treatment approaches that target the root causes of illness. She is certified as a health care provider for FirstLine Therapy® through Metagenics and is participating in the Advanced Fellowship in Anti-Aging, Metabolic and Functional Medicine through the Metabolic Medical Institute of A4M.
Dr. Amato believes that early intervention is critical when people are affected by emotional, behavioral, cognitive and learning disorders. Mental health should be looked at in the context of an integrated mind-body approach. Especially in cases of children and adolescents, early diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders is essential in promoting healthy development.
Proud to be a Board Member of American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists & Practitioners. He is a board-certified emergency physician and founder and medical director of Initia Nova in Cherry Hill, NJ. Dr Sullivan works in a specialized Neurologic Emergency Department led by Global Neurosciences Institute where he specializes in diagnosing and treating ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, as well as acute and chronic headaches.
Dr Patrick ‘Rocky’ Sullivan is a board-certified emergency physician, and is the founder and medical director of Initia Nova in Cherry Hill, NJ. Dr Sullivan completed his residency in 2007, and spent the next 12 years working in a specialized ER, frequently treating acute and chronic psychiatric and substance abuse emergencies. In 2016 he founded his outpatient treatment facility at Initia Nova to offer advanced treatments for these common conditions, as it was clear that the status quo was just not working. After seeing the amazing impact of ketamine infusion therapy on depression, Dr Sullivan continued to expand Initia Nova, offering ketamine assisted psychotherapy for PTSD in 2017, along with groundbreaking treatment programs for alcohol use disorder. In 2018 he began providing TMS, and has developed a personalized accelerated theta burst protocol which provides an excellent alternative to ketamine therapy, or sometimes in conjunction. In 2019 he was trained in the utilization of NAD infusions, and expanded on his addiction treatments with a combination of these advanced techniques plus psychotherapy for a truly comprehensive approach.
In 2019 Dr Sullivan was recruited to work in a specialized Neurologic Emergency Department led by Global Neurosciences Institute. In the Neuro ER he specializes in diagnosing and treating ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, as well as acute and chronic headaches. Bridging the gap between the physical and psychological aspects of brain science to heal the whole person is the driving focus of Dr. Sullivan’s work. He understands the complex interplay between physical illness and pain, and the neurobiolgy of mood disorders and addiction. Initia Nova also offers a comprehensive headache treatment program, combination a number of advanced treatments and specializing in migraine and post traumatic headache, and the frequent comorbidities that accompany them.
Dr Sullivan is honored to be on the Board of Directors for The American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists and Practitioners, where his goal is to contribute to setting science based and high standards for ketamine therapy.
Jeffrey Becker, MD, has over 20 years of research and clinical experience in NMDA-receptor pharmacology and clinical use, and was one of the first MDs in the U.S. administering and documenting ketamine for depression in the clinic. His long experience with patients has produced a teaching that offers grounding paradigms and therapeutic skills to mental health ketamine practitioners involved in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy.
Dr. Carl J. Bonnett, MD, is the founder and Chief Medical Officer of Klarisana. Dr. Bonnett has been active in the field of Psychedelic Medicine since he founded Klarisana in 2015. Currently Klarisana operates six centers in Colorado and Texas. Last year Klarisana performed nearly 20,000 ketamine treatments. Dr. Bonnett is also one of the founding board members of ASKP3. Dr. Bonnett completed his residency in 2005 at the Denver Health Medical Center Residency in Emergency Medicine. He then completed a fellowship in EMS and Disaster Medicine at Denver Health. He also retired from the Army National Guard in 2015 (LTC) with twenty years of service and four deployments to the Middle East. In 2007 Dr. Bonnett was awarded the Combat Medical Badge for providing care under fire while deployed with the 41st Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan. The impetus for him to enter the field of psychedelic medicine was the alarmingly high Veteran suicide rate. He recognized the incredible promise that ketamine and other medications could have for treating PTSD by leveraging a non-ordinary state of consciousness. Dr. Bonnett and his team at Klarisana have published three original research papers so far in the field of ketamine treatment for mental health conditions.
Nykol Bailey Rice is educated as both a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (Westminster in Salt Lake City, UT) as well as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (University of Cincinnati, OH). She has been operating Boise Ketamine Clinic since 2015. She has personally facilitated thousands of ketamine infusions and is passionate about providing a high-quality, collaborative ketamine course. She is familiar and experienced with all routes of ketamine administration. Nykol completed a full three-year board term for the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Practitioners and Psychoanalysts, where she helped to draft a set of standards and ethics for therapeutic ketamine use. Nykol then completed a year-long certificate program for non-ordinary states’ work with Integrative Psychiatry Institute. She is also on the guest lecture circuit with Boise State University & Middle Tennessee School of Anesthesia, lecturing prospective future mental health care & anesthesia professionals on utilizing ketamine for mental health & chronic pain patients. Nykol is passionate about community education, suicide prevention, and educating other healthcare professionals on the benefits of ketamine. She has worked continually to increase the accessibility as well as affordability of this life-saving treatment option. Nykol has been very excited to add Ketamine-Assisted Therapy, Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy, and group work to the clinic.
Dr. Nicolas (Nico) Grundmann is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, and the Co-Founder and Medical Director of Ember Health, a multi-site IV ketamine practice in New York City.
With a background in public health and commitment to measurement-based care, Dr. Grundmann has led clinical operations since helping found Ember’s in 2018. He's helped build one of the world's largest real-world datasets on the administration, safety, and efficacy of IV ketamine for depression. He leads research partnerships with Harvard Medical School, Mass General Brigham, Baylor College of Medicine, and Stanford University. His work is driven by a commitment to helping individuals regain agency in their lives while advancing the ketamine field through rigor, safety, and expanded access.
As a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists, and Practitioners (ASKP3), Dr. Grundmann focuses on advancing clear, evidence-based standards of care and expanding responsible access to treatment. He is committed to strengthening cross-institutional collaboration and supporting the data and policy frameworks necessary to broaden insurance coverage and equitable integration of ketamine care into traditional mental health care.
Dr. Grundmann completed his residency at Kings County Hospital / SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, NY, and earned both his MD and MBA from Stanford University. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and family.
