Not to oversell it, but an ibogaine trip is like “open-heart surgery for the wounded soul” — that’s how Talia Eisenberg, co-founder of Beond, puts it.
Why do we want something as drastic as surgery? Maybe we have a malformation or a burden that’s bothering us, limiting us—and maybe killing us slowly. Maybe that’s addiction, distraction, or self-criticism. And when you work with ibogaine, and trust ibogaine, it can be like a healer with a scalpel. Opening you up. Finding the trauma “tumor” or maladaptation. And cutting it out or realigning it.
That’s how the medical staff at Beond sees it, anyway. Our team of 8 doctors and more than 20 nurses work as a tight clinical unit. We take every ibogaine journey extremely seriously. We know the benefits, and we’re aware of the risks without proper supervision and protocols.
Ibogaine is a psychedelic derived from the root bark of a Central African shrub. Ibogaine has been found to quell depression, mitigate the impact of brain injuries, and promote deep introspection and emotional healing.
Ibogaine is, however, more physically risky than other psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms.
On ibogaine, the heart’s QT interval—the dub part of the heart’s lub-dub—becomes elongated. In rare cases, an extended QT interval can lead to an irregular rhythm called Torsade de Pointes, a potentially life-threatening condition characterized by rapid, erratic heartbeats. This is why we consistently work to uphold the highest standards of medical monitoring and quality control.
We respect and love all our doctors and nurses here at Beond, and we want to introduce all of them to you. Our doctors leverage their diverse sets of skills, specialties and expertise to integrate their work with those of our founders, Tom and Talia, and our nurses, including Vianey Perez and Patricia Tovar, to welcome clients and evaluate heart health—to keep guests as safe as possible.
This month, we want to highlight Dr. Edgar Montalvo Diaz, Vice President of Global Clinical Operations.
Dr. Montalvo has a few key jobs: one was to help us scale up our operations while systematically increasing safety. Today, he works hard to meticulously evaluate new patients to see who’s ready for ibogaine and who isn’t. Dr. Montalvo and our whole team, in other words, make sure every heart is cared for.
A Doctor’s Son
Dr. Montalvo is a real, actual surgeon, steady with both scalpel and suture. He keeps Beond steady every day.
Born and raised in Cuba, Dr. Montalvo had a happy and hopeful childhood, and can recall playing with his toys and watching TV, even playing out being a doctor. His father was a doctor, and Edgar followed his dad into medicine.
Becoming a doctor wasn’t easy. His first day in the operating room was serious and scary.
“I was almost fainting from the blood,” says Dr. Montalvo. Hand shaking, he avoided actual cutting. His supervisor noticed his fear and told him, “you have to do the next set of stitches.”
Only then did Edgar start to suture patients, thinking, “this is so scary!” But as he became engrossed in the work of healing, his thoughts shifted to, “this is truly fascinating! Look at how the human body functions, grows and heals!”
Dr. Montalvo grew to love surgery—both for technical challenges, and for the good it can do.
“The impact is so immediate,” he says. “You have a surgery and a few days later you see the results. And the patient loves you back.”
The Immediacy of Ibogaine Surgery
“The same thing that happens with other types of surgery, happens with our program at Beond,” says Dr. Montalvo. After the intensity of an ibogaine journey, you can see quick changes in people. The root problem—the abscess or blockage of the spirit and soul—is removed or opened.
In scientific language, ibogaine reopens the critical period of social reward learning. Guests return to a childlike state with a malleable mindset (a state of increased neuroplasticity), often highly motivated to grow, change mindset, overcome dependencies, and passionately pursue personal goals. Guests notice what brings them happiness, what relationships are healthy and helpful, and how they can and should relate to the world.
“We see a guest evolve, from arriving with a lot of burdens and struggling, to someone who is decreasing negative symptoms and appreciative of what we do,” says Dr. Montalvo. “They arrive thinking I am a problem and leave with an entirely new outlook. They have this new window of opportunity to make new changes in their lives.
For the first time in their lives they feel that profound shift in perspective – believing ‘I’m worth it again, I’m not the problem…I am the solution.” They often want to help others with a sense of urgency and new drive.
Rooted Expansion
Dr. Montalvo has also set the tone for the medical staff. He led the effort to expand, standardize, and systematize our medical procedures, allowing Beond’s medicine to become more integrated in our care program.
Since joining us, Dr. Montalvo has been enhancing the expertise of the doctors and nurses at Beond, strengthening their communication, research capabilities, and the facilitation of our daily rounds to ensure they are both patient-centric and data-driven.
Under Dr. Montalvo’s leadership, Beond expanded from 7 beds to 21. He helped us hone a treatment room that is the most prepared and safe in the ibogaine world. We haven’t sacrificed safety one bit as we’ve scaled up, thanks to Dr. Montalvo’s protocols and training.
Every staff member knows how to use our systems to keep our guests safer. When we recruit a new doctor, every other doctor on the team has to sign off that they’re ready to join the team, so we can feel safe no matter which doctor is the primary care provider for a Beond guest.
Dr. Montalvo has long been working to deliver alternative medicines safely and at scale. In the early days of medicinal cannabis, he helped open a chain of marijuana clinics. From there, he moved on to be the Vice President of Clinical Operations for Field Trip, an early chain of ketamine clinics.
“These businesses went from illegal to enterprise scale, almost overnight,” says Tom Feegel, co-founder of Beond. “Dr. Montalvo understands standardization, systemization, the scientific and medical aspects of psychedelic medicines, and the unique nuances of patient needs.”
“What his team did in ethical, safe, effective, scientifically-based ketamine prepared him for this role at Beond,” adds Tom.
Meeting the Medicine
After working at Beond for 3 years, Dr. Montalvo had his first ibogaine treatment this summer. “It was an amazing experience,” says Dr. Montalvo. “My takeaway was to stay closely connected to and deeply love my inner child… who was happy and full of hope, playing on that floor in my house in Cuba.”
He tries to bring that childlike joy to his life with his daughter, 8, and his wife. A prospective client or family member may meet Dr. Montalvo via Zoom, rocking in his rocking chair with a uniform with his name on his chest, “Dr. Edgar Montalvo Diaz, M.D.” looking as content as a kid in his living room dreaming of being a doctor.
All of the physicians at Beond are ready and prepared to guide clients through what the physicians call “soul surgery.” It’s a chance to dig deep, to heal from those wounds that no one else can see but that you feel every single day.
And—guess what!—at Beond, a guest can do this surgery without a single stitch. That’s right. We’re talking about a different kind of healing—one that doesn’t involve a scalpel or stitches but instead focuses on the mind, the heart, and the spirit. Beond has built the team, the expertise, and the compassion to help guide each client through their journey, every step of the way. And in the process, we’re helping people rediscover the best version of themselves.
