New course offers expert advice on medical cannabis from doctors and patients

A new online course on prescribing medical cannabis will offer a detailed insight into the industry from both clinicians and patients. Cannabis Health speaks to course creator and CEO Ryan McCreanor.

Sativa Learning and the Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society (MCCS) have partnered to offer a new course on the prescribing of medical cannabis in the UK. The course will start on the 10th of January.

It will cover a comprehensive list of topics around cannabis as a medicine such as clinical evidence for medical cannabis, the practicalities of prescribing and side effects and contraindications.

The course, which will run online only, will also offer a variety of clinical and patient stories on a select list of conditions such as chronic pain, fibromyalgia, epilepsy, paediatric epilepsy, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Sativa Learning has already launched a successful online CBD course covering everything from the science behind the cannabinoid to UK regulations.

Ryan got the idea following his return from Canada to his hometown of Northern Ireland where he struggled to find decent quality CBD products. He started his career as a toxicology scientist before working for the Canadian government as an educator and trainer post legalisation in 2018.

“This was a way to bring a level of legitimacy to the industry by developing an accredited expert-led cannabis course,” said Ryan.

“The idea for the platform is that we want to provide education for all avenues of the cannabis industry. The CBD industry was a good place to start as I had a good level of knowledge myself so I put together a lot of the educational content myself.”

He continued: “I wanted to bring in real experts so we partnered with Professor Barnes and Hannah Deacon. All future courses will be CPD-credited. A lot of medical professionals will have to gain a certain amount of CPD points per year so they can take our course and feel comfortable that it is managed to a high started of further learning.”

As well as Hannah Deacon and Prof Barnes, the course also includes expert panels from Dr Dani Gordon who will speak about cannabis and oncology. Other classes will include Dr Elie Okirie speaking about epilepsy and Dr Evan Lewis on paediatric epilepsy. When it comes to the syllabus, the MCCS has put together the content for the cannabis course.

Sativa Learning founder, Ryan McCreanor and Professor Mike Barnes

Ryan explained that they selected the conditions they included carefully to give a broad overview of common conditions.

He said: “We picked out 10 of the most common conditions for which cannabis is prescribed. We have fibromyalgia, chronic pain, cancer pain and women’s health issues. The doctors explain how they prescribe for that condition and have a number of patients who speak on camera about their experience.”

Expert-led courses

When it comes to panel discussions, courses or expert lead videos, it can often feel as if patients are forgotten. Ryan highlighted that this is a key part of the course.

“Not only do we have the doctors educating on cannabis but we have a follow-up with a patient talking about their experience,” he said.

“They discuss what life was like for them before medical cannabis, what their prescription is like and how this changed things for them.

“The industry should be all about the patients so we want to make sure that their voices are heard.”

The course will be fully online, with an option to learn as you go and break and save your progress whenever you are ready.  At the end of the course, there will be an exam that will give you a presentation upon a passing grade. The exam is part of the CPD accreditation.

Ryan added: “Some people have blasted through our CBD course in one day where they just sit down and get through it all which can take up to six hours depending on your existing level of knowledge. This course is going to be quite a bit longer but you can do it all in one day or you could do a few hours a night for six months.”

The platform will be available for anyone who wants to learn about cannabis although Ryan explained that it may be more suited towards industry professionals.

He concluded: “There are no barriers to entry. The course is going to be available for whoever wants to learn about cannabis medicine. The language we use is heavily targeted towards the medical professionals as it is aimed at that audience to teach medical professionals about the basics of prescribing.”

Access the course here

Read more: The importance of peer to peer learning in medical cannabis education