Psychedelics in Palliative Care: Clinical and Ethical Considerations

Rohini Kanniganti, MD, MSPH, HMDC
Anthony P. Bossis, PhD
Sunil Aggarwal, MD, PhD, FAAPMR, FAAHPM

Monday 27 October, 2025 7PM CET (6PM GMT, 2PM ET, 11AM PT)

Online via Zoom

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Death is the one threshold we all must cross. It is both inevitable and deeply human, a passage that raises profound psychological, existential, and spiritual questions. For those living with terminal illness, the approach of death can bring fear, anxiety, and despair, but also opportunities for reconciliation, meaning, and even transcendence.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is increasingly being studied as a way to support people at the end of life. Research has shown psilocybin’s potential to ease depression and anxiety in patients facing life-threatening diagnoses, while clinical and legal work continues to explore how these therapies might be integrated into palliative care. Alongside the science, psychedelics invite us to engage with death in its sacred dimension, reminding us that this is not only a clinical concern but a universal human experience that asks for presence, humility, and care.

This 90-minute panel brings together leading voices at the intersection of psychedelics and end-of-life care. Rohini Kanniganti, M.D., Associate Medical Director at Mountain Valley Hospice and Palliative Care (North Carolina), will bring a frontline perspective on the clinical, relational, and spiritual realities of hospice work. Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D. (NYU School of Medicine), co-investigator of the landmark 2016 psilocybin trial with cancer patients, will share insights from his research into how psilocybin can help cultivate peace, acceptance, and spiritual well-being at the end of life. Sunil Aggarwal, M.D., Ph.D. (AIMS Institute, Seattle), a palliative care physician and medical geographer, will discuss his pioneering work providing psychedelic care for terminally ill patients and his legal efforts to secure psilocybin access under “Right to Try” laws.

Your Key Insights and Takeaways

By attending, you will:

Gain an overview of global research into psychedelics for end-of-life care
Explore therapeutic mechanisms for addressing existential, psychological, and spiritual suffering
Learn about ethical, legal, and policy challenges shaping access to psychedelic therapies
Reflect on death as a universal threshold that calls for both scientific rigour and reverence for the sacred

Designed for Professionals Like You

This event is designed for mental health professionals, clinicians, and researchers who want to deepen their understanding of psychedelic-assisted approaches to palliative care while also engaging with the existential and spiritual dimensions of dying. It is the first in an ongoing series exploring the diverse clinical applications of psychedelic therapy across different diagnoses.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Rohini Kanniganti MD, MSPH, HMDC, is a Board Certified Family Physician. She has served in Hospice and Palliative Care for over a decade, currently working with the Mountain Valley Hospice and Palliative Care in NC and Trailwinds Hospice in Boulder, CO. She is a fellow of the Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI, Boulder, CO), where she also completed the Ketamine Provider Certification and the Psychedelic Assisted Therapy Program. She currently also serves at the “Integrative Psychiatry Institute” as Faculty and Lead Physician for the Ketamine Experiential Program. She serves as Palliative Advisor for “TheraPsil,” Canada, and as Faculty for the “End of Life Psychedelic Care Program”, and “Relationship Resources” in Woodstock NY in which she serves as medical co-lead for the Cultivating Joy Retreat series. She has been interviewed on “The Higher Practice Podcast”, “TCN Talks”, “The Conscious Physician Podcast” and “Tromedy”. She has a new podcast series (with Claire Bigley), “The Sound and The Healing”, and is starting a Youtube Channel (with Mark Brown, Chaplain), called “Cultivating Grace”. She loves to teach from the attuned heart, with reverence for the inner movement toward wholeness in all beings. She honors context and community within the healing process. She brings together care-full science and the sacred. She lives in Boulder, CO, finding joy in playfulness, creativity and nature.

She resides in Boulder, CO with her husband, 2 cat children at home, and 2 human children in college.

Anthony P. Bossis, Ph.D., is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, adjunct professor of religious studies at the University of Ottawa, and a research investigator at Lundquist Institute-Harbor-UCLA. For twenty years, he has been conducting FDA-approved clinical research with the psychedelic compound psilocybin with primary objectives for the treatment of end-of-life psycho-existential distress and implications for advancing our understanding of consciousness, meaning, and spirituality. He was director of palliative care research on a trial demonstrating a significant reduction in psychological distress and an improvement in spiritual well-being from a single psilocybin session in persons with cancer and was co-senior author and primary session facilitator on a trial investigating a psilocybin-generated mystical experience upon religious leaders from various religious traditions. He is a training supervisor of psychotherapy at NYU-Bellevue Hospital and co-founder of the Bellevue Hospital Palliative Care Service. Dr. Bossis is on the faculty of The Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Humanistic Psychology and a guest editor for the journal’s Special Series on Psychedelics. He maintains a private psychotherapy and consulting practice in NYC.

Dr. Sunil Aggarwal is a physician and medical geographer. He is a Board-Certified Fellow of both the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, where he was named a Top 20 Emerging Leader. He is Past Chair of the Integrative Medicine Special Interest Group and an inaugural member and Chair of the Safe Use in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies Forum at the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He is a Voluntary Clinical Assistant Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the UW School of Medicine, anAffiliate Assistant Professor of Geography in the UW College of Arts and Sciences, an Affiliate Clinical Faculty Member at Bastyr University School of Naturopathic Medicine, and a Faculty Member of the National Family Medicine Residency. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of theNational Cancer Institute’s PDQ Cancer CAM information summary on cannabis and as an Associate Member of the New York Academy of Medicine and the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research. He maintains a clinical practice at AIMS and serves as a Hospice Physician and On-Call Palliative Physician for a Puget Sound based healthcare system. He has been qualified as an expert in cannabis and psilocybin medical and religious use in county, state, and federal courts. He has completed two ketamine-assisted psychotherapy trainings with the Ketamine Training Center and Orenda Institute. He has completed MAPS MDMA-Assisted Therapy, 100 hours of training (Part A-D), certified. He is petitioning for Right to Try access to psilocybin for patients.

Dr. Aggarwal received a B.S. in chemistry, B.A. in philosophy, and a minor in religious studies from UC Berkeley. He completed the NIH-supported Medical Scientist Training Program at the UW School of Medicine where he received a Ph.D. in medical geography and a Doctorate of Medicine (M.D.) with a Pathway Certification in Global Health. He was supported in part by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. He completed his Medicine Internship in Internal Medicine at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Residency in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the New York University Medical Center, and Clinical Fellowship in Hospice and Palliative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health-Clinical Center Pain and Palliative Care Service.