Wednesday, October, 1st, 2025 12:00 PM PST
Do you wish you got into this event for free? Become a Chacruna member and receive free or discounted access to all Community Forums, Courses, Workshops, and more! Also get full access to our entire archive of past forum recordings and join our global network of psychedelic professionals and activists to dive deeper into discussion and discovery.
Join us for a conversation on the role of nurses in psychedelic-assisted therapy. As psychedelics find their place in healthcare, nurses bring a unique perspective, combining clinical knowledge, ethics, and compassionate care. This Community Forum will explore how nursing training and ethics prepare practitioners for this work, what barriers exist, and what skills or competencies should be prioritized for nurses entering the field. We’ll dive into questions like: How can nurses treat all drug use as valid and support those who use substances? Who are we not reaching, and why does that matter? How do systemic inequities shape the leadership and culture of psychedelic organizations, and how can nurses help increase access to psychedelic therapies? Speakers include Andrew Penn, psychiatric nurse practitioner and researcher at UCSF; Dr. Ronica Mukerjee, family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and health justice advocate; Caroline Dorsen, nurse scholar and program director for the University Psychedelic Education Program; and Dr. Megan Miller, nurse researcher specializing in palliative care and psilocybin-assisted therapy. Together, we’ll discuss how nurses can help make psychedelic therapy more accessible, ethical, and rooted in care and justice.
Andrew Penn, MS, PMHNP is a psychiatric nurse practitioner, adjunct professor at the UC San Francisco School of Nursing, and a researcher on psychedelic therapies at the UCSF Translational Psychedelic Research Program (TrPR) and at the Carhart-Harris Lab. He has been an investigator on studies examining MDMA assisted therapy for PTSD, on psilocybin assisted therapy for people with Parkinson’s disease and depression; with bipolar 2 depression; and chronic pain. He was a co-PI on the phase 2 study of psilocybin assisted therapy for major depression, recently published in JAMA. An internationally invited speaker, he has taught at SXSW, TEDx, Aspen Institute, and the Singapore Ministry of Health. Additionally, he has published widely on psychedelic therapies and their intersections with nursing and is the cofounder of the Organization of Psychedelic and Entheogenic Nurses (OPENurses.org). He can be found at AndrewPennNP.com.
Ronica Mukerjee DNP, MsA is a family and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner as well as an acupuncturist. Dr. Mukerjee is an assistant professor of nursing, and provides both hormonal care and psychiatric care for trans and gender diverse patients. Dr. Mukerjee’s book about abolition and health justice, All of this Safety is Killing Us, was published this year by North Atlantic Books.
Caroline Dorsen (she/her) is a nurse scholar, educator, and clinician whose passion is the intersection of health, substance use and social justice. She is the program director for the University Psychedelic Education Program (U-PEP) and Clinical Professor & Associate Dean for Clinical Faculty Affairs at NYU Meyers College of Nursing.
Dr. Megan (aka Meg) Miller (she/they) is a Registered Nurse and researcher dedicated to compassionate, holistic, and equitable palliative and supportive care. Since 2015, they’ve worked across hospice, nursing education, and health promotion. Megan earned their BSN and PhD at Michigan State University, focusing on cancer symptom management and integrative therapies, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the UW – Madison School of Nursing. Their mixed-methods research explores the role of spirituality and emerging therapies – like psilocybin-assisted therapy – in easing cancer-related symptoms. Megan co-founded the Creative Dying Project, facilitates Death Cafés, and is a graduate of the California Institute of Integral Studies’ Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research. They are especially passionate about how psychedelic-assisted care can support people facing illness, grief, and dying – and about expanding access to these approaches in community-based models of care.
