Training (Was Qualifications)

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Dear Joy

Dr J presentation was a gem - so thanks to him.

It comes down to the fact there was a physical 'maintaining cause' to this
patients problem.

The artery having got blocked you have little time to resolve it and the
angioplasty procedure is probably the quickest way of resolving the
situation. However the case is not over because the artery may get blocked
again. So good homoeopathic prescribing is required to prevent the situation
from happening.

At college we were given very little 'hands-on' training. Some Homs cannot
take the patient's BP let alone use the Stet so expertly.

How are Medics trained in using the Stet? I guess it is done during the time
they spend on the wards seeing all the cases that present themselves with
such pathology.
Something that we homs being trained in the West miss out on. Shame there so
few homoeopathic hospitals. (Most in UK were taken over by the allopaths
during the WW1 period and never given back.)

I fully agree that this poor training situation needs urgent attention. So
how can we resolve it?

Once again many thanks to Dr J

Rgds
Soroush
Message: 19
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 18:29:58 +0100
From: J Lucas
Subject: Re: Qualification

I admit to not following all of this discussion but I am curious as to why
you say this...

Best wishes, Joy

www.homeopathicmateriamedica.com
on 10/18/04 6:00 PM, Dr. J. Rozencwajg, MD, PhD. at jroz@ihug.co.nz wrote:
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Ellen Madono]

Dear Joy,

I am not very good about getting to physical exam when doing a homeopathic interview. But everytime I have a chance to do shiatsu on a homeopathic patient, I kick myself because I learn a lot through doing a shiatsu on a homeopathic patient. I am not good at making the pathological analysis, but I learn how they really feel.

Anyway, from learning shiatsu diagnosis, I strongly feel that just doing it is an important part of the learning process. My experience of learning shiatsu diagnosis may be the pattern for other learners too. You have to have some idea of the patterns to be recognized, but at first you don't feel them and all your attention is on the physical process anyway. As the physical process is mastered, the necessary perceptive activity becomes sharper. I am not good at Chinese pulses, but I have not practiced them as much as shiatsu diagnosis. I have to force myself to consciously do it even when I am not getting the necessary information, or can't feel the patterns. I have a feeling that the stethoscope etc. is the same. Taking A&P, I looked at the heart patterns in the textbook and just felt dizzy. I think if I am more concrete in listening to the various parts of the chest and just allowing myself to relax into the perceptive activity, I will understand the conceptual aspects better also.

I have an emotional block about doing something that doctors and trained medical people do. I don't want patients to think that I am pretending to be a doctor. Does anyone else feel this way? I am thinking of asking some retired local doctors to help me. I can easily imagine them thinking that I am very silly in my entire aspiration. Probably the fear is greater than the reality.

Being able to pick up on conditions that cannot be addressed by homeopathy is clearly advantageous. I don't need to get a precise diagnosis, I only need to know that there could be a physical blockage, a misalignment etc that needs imediate allopathic attention.

Blesssings,
Ellen
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Shannon Nelson]

Hi Ellen,

on 10/19/04 7:04 PM, Ellen Madono at ellen.madono@verizon.net wrote:

...

I have that feeling too, and also some reluctance over the issue of plain
ol' touching! Which is sad, but can be an issue here, at least.

But I'm thinking of those more as "my stuff" than as something that really
ought to stop us. One thing -- if we are explaining to the patient what
we're doing and why, they won't find it weird. In fact, they'll probably
feel flattered at the extra attention, and interested in our thoughts!
Even/also in looking for "the remedy" it is sometimes necessary to know
what's *behind* the symptoms -- do you want a remedy with affinity to, say,
circulation, or spasm, or "fear of disease", or ? So far when I'm looking
for that information I try to make use of the patient's medical exams, but
often find it frustrating, since they're not focusing on the same things *I*
am! (If you figure you can just drug the symptom away, I suppose there's
less perceived need to find out just why it's happening, argh... All the
more reason why it could be *SO* useful to be able to do this ourselves!!!!)

Best,
Shannon

[Dale Moss]

Ellen's message raises a difficult issue:

"I have an emotional block about doing something that doctors and trained
medical people do. I don't want patients to think that I am pretending to
be a doctor."

By "pretending to be a doctor" are we opening ourselves up to liability,
esp. in the USA? I for one am not comfortable about relying on doctors'
diagnoses, since they're often garbage when dealing with anything that
doesn't fit into their tidy disease pigeonholes. But I'm also leery about
getting involved myself in diagnoses, because it might open me to charges of
practicing medicine, which I cannot legally do.

Peace,
Cinnabar

[Rosemary C Hyde PhD]

There's another issue here for homeopaths who are not also licensed physicians, at least in the US, and that is that doing a physical exam is one aspect of "practicing medicine." Not only is it illegal for non-MDs to do physical exams, we obviously aren't trained for it. So we do need to rely on medical information from the patients' allopathic physicians, and we need to be prepared to tell our patients when it would be a good idea for them to get allopathic data if they haven't already, just as a precaution in situations where we might encounter legal liability if they have not seen a licensed physician. It does take years of training and practice to acquire the level of prowess in physical diagnosis that Dr R explained to us in his sample case. Talent, and interest, too. Many MDs haven't acquired that level of skill -- it would be good if they had!!

What the case demonstrated for me is that there are circumstances where one emphatically needs to send the patient back to the allopaths, if a potential emergency is brewing, even if the allopaths haven't seen that. And, as Joy says, it makes sense also to treat them homeopathically on an emergency basis, even if we can't afford to wait a long time for homeopathic treatment to demonstrate whether it's going to work.

We don't need to learn all the ins and outs of physical diagnosis (although I believe that the more we know the better we can help our patients as homeopaths). We do need to have a good sense of what's a potential emergency so that a patient who comes to us gets life-preserving treatment, wherever it comes from.

The teachers at the first homeopathic school I attended believed that allopaths are the mortal enemies of homeopaths -- that allopathy is good for nothing and homeopathy the total answer for everything. I considered that viewpoint prejudiced and short-sighted. I see it rather that we have our areas of strength and they have theirs, and practitioners of both schools can work together to help a patient achieve and maintain a better state of health. (That doesn't mean it always happens that way by a long shot, but it's possible and desirable.).

Rosemary

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

I think it is important for Homoeopaths to be able to use equipment to
measure blood pressure, look in to ears and throats, and to listen to heart
and lungs and the abdomen and feel for damage around the joints. When
treating patients it is not convenient to send the patient to have these
things done and get them to bring a report back.

If homs are trained more comprehensively in their colleges and are licensed
by those colleges, I do not see why it would be illegal for them to do
hands-on examinations - it certainly is not in UK.

I agree with Rosemary that the view that "allopathy is good for nothing and
homeopathy the total answer for everything. " is not correct and prejudiced.
There are many occasions where modern medicine can save lives and that is
what is important. (granted that it can mess the life and even kill).
As someone said some time ago, when the house is on fire you do not worry
about the piano. Patients' continued well being is the main criteria and in
an emergency any thing goes in trying to save a life.

In the case Dr J was describing, we have two problems.
1- Diagnosing that something really serious was going on and in fact the
patient's life was in danger and working out in fact what was the problem
(when the GP had failed to do so)
2- When the artery is blocked , I am not so sure that homoeopathy can
dissolve the blockage quickly - if some think it can, please let us make it
a teaching case and show how it can be done and offer cases.

As an exercise let us repertorise Dr J's patient's original presented
symptoms (excluding Dr J's diagnosis as the result of his expert use of the
stethoscope) and see what remedy comes out and whether that remedy has an
affinity toward circulation problems etc.

Joy would like to get the ball started?

Rgds
Soroush

Message: 25
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 12:03:20 -0700
From: "Rosemary C Hyde PhD"
Subject: Re: Training (Was Qualifications)

There's another issue here for homeopaths who are not also licensed
physicians, at least in the US, and that is that doing a physical exam is
one aspect of "practicing medicine." Not only is it illegal for non-MDs to
do physical exams, we obviously aren't trained for it. So we do need to
rely on medical information from the patients' allopathic physicians, and we
need to be prepared to tell our patients when it would be a good idea for
them to get allopathic data if they haven't already, just as a precaution in
situations where we might encounter legal liability if they have not seen a
licensed physician. It does take years of training and practice to acquire
the level of prowess in physical diagnosis that Dr R explained to us in his
sample case. Talent, and interest, too. Many MDs haven't acquired that
level of skill -- it would be good if they had!!

What the case demonstrated for me is that there are circumstances where one
emphatically needs to send the patient back to the allopaths, if a potential
emergency is brewing, even if the allopaths haven't seen that. And, as Joy
says, it makes sense also to treat them homeopathically on an emergency
basis, even if we can't afford to wait a long time for homeopathic treatment
to demonstrate whether it's going to work.

We don't need to learn all the ins and outs of physical diagnosis (although
I believe that the more we know the better we can help our patients as
homeopaths). We do need to have a good sense of what's a potential
emergency so that a patient who comes to us gets life-preserving treatment,
wherever it comes from.

The teachers at the first homeopathic school I attended believed that
allopaths are the mortal enemies of homeopaths -- that allopathy is good for
nothing and homeopathy the total answer for everything. I considered that
viewpoint prejudiced and short-sighted. I see it rather that we have our
areas of strength and they have theirs, and practitioners of both schools
can work together to help a patient achieve and maintain a better state of
health. (That doesn't mean it always happens that way by a long shot, but
it's possible and desirable.).

Rosemary
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Patricia Hatherly]

In Australia the profession went through an exercise several years ago of
working together with government authorities to write a set of
"competencies" which we all agreed constituted "best practice".
These are the template against which all Registered Training Authorities
design curricula.

Physical Examnation is one of the competencies and was included because it
is impossible to make a HOMOEOPATHIC DIAGNOSIS unless one occasionally looks
in a throat or an ear or listens with a stethescope etc.

We do NOT purport to be doctors; merely homoeopathic physicians going about
our business of determining the Simillimum and that (as Soroush has
indicated) sometimes means examining the patient.

kind regards
Patricia

[Shannon Nelson]

Hi Rosemary,

I didn't realize/remember that doing the exam itself is a no-no. (Tho I
guess not surprising, all in all.) Are we permitted to use stethoscope and
blood pressure cuff? (Because if not, I'm wondering why we got even the
little bit of that that we *did* get in school?)

Shannon
on 10/20/04 2:03 PM, Rosemary C Hyde PhD at rosemarychyde@mindspring.com
wrote:

[Rosemary C Hyde PhD]

Very interesting, Patricia -- and sensible. US homeopathic colleges should take note, it seems to me. Thanks for sharing that. Rosemary

[Rosemary C Hyde PhD]

Shannon, I think if you have a good rapport with your patient and make it firmly clear (just as a legal precuation) that this is NOT a "medical" procedure (the magic word), there will probably not be any problems. The risk is someone saying you were practicing medicine, at which point mass hysteria is, unfortunately, able to take over. Rosemary