Minutus

Dear John
It's very simple - and very ethical. You take the case - in the normal way. And it takes as long as it takes. Then....and this is the difficult part for you, I guess.....you use WHATEVER SEEMS BEST INDICATED FOR THAT PATIENT AT THAT TIME. This takes time - can take ages, as it also involves repertorisation and comparison of remedies and approaches that you have studied. No short cuts here, so you can put that idea to sleep. So - nothing less than what you do - but I have more strings to my bow should I need them.
Oh - and my conscience is crystal clear.
Liz

Dear Liz,

Your methods, then, appear to be based on the same principle as Varun's: Do as thou shalt, the principle of eclecticism. Thanks for clearing that up too.

I have no criticism to make of your use of that principle as such. The point of the question (remember the question?) about accepting a fee, though, is your respect for the patient's informed choice, particularly the choice to not inadvertently pay money for treatment represented as being consistent with the homoeopathic principle that actually is not.

Do your patients understand that you are prepared to violate the homoeopathic principle for the higher principle Do as thou shalt? I.e., do they understand you to give out that you are practising not as a homoeopath (conforming to the law of similars) but as a an eclectic (free to use her judgement to set aside the law of similars)?

If any do not, then do you refuse payment from them for this wandering from the path you implicitly commit yourself to in calling yourself a homoeopath, the path of seeking the simillimum through the only realistic means: knowledge and comparison of symptoms?

Notice that I do not ask you to justify the deceit or the fraud if your answers to these questions are respectively "Yes" and "No"; only to know what your moral position actually leads you to do.

Many thanks for the straightforward answers in lieu of teeth-gnashing; they help clear the air.

Kind regards,

John

Dear John
In reply to your interminable questions and hair-splitting, I repeat:
It's very simple - and very ethical. You take the case - in the normal way. And it takes as long as it takes. Then....and this is the difficult part for you, I guess.....you use WHATEVER SEEMS BEST INDICATED FOR THAT PATIENT AT THAT TIME. This takes time - can take ages, as it also involves repertorisation and comparison of remedies and approaches that you have studied. No short cuts here, so you can put that idea to sleep. So - nothing less than what you do - but I have more strings to my bow should I need them.
Oh - and my conscience is crystal clear.
Liz

Hi, Liz --

Thank you; yes, you made all this clear before: that you pay lip service to the homoeopathic principle and then prescribe on whatever basis "seems best".

I can see that the reason you're unable to answer my question is that I've made it too complicated. My apologies. Let me break it down into its constitutent parts.

(1) Do you adopt this... let us call it an approach... do you adopt this approach in the cases of patients who have come to you on the understanding that you will treat them in your capacity as a homoeopath?

(2) In those cases to which the answer to that question is "Yes" -- in which you prescribe on whatever basis you deem "seems best" though the patient came to you for treatment on the basis of the homoeopathic principle -- do you then reject payment?

That's two separate questions, with distinct numbers, and I hope that that makes clearer what it is that the question that commenced this thread was seeking.

Thanks!

John
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"Because we're supposed to have an open government—a democracy—everything the Government does is presumptively public, and can be legitimately concealed only with compelling justifications. That's not just some lofty, abstract theory; it's central to having anything resembling 'consent of the governed'."
—Glenn Greenwald, "The moral standards of WikiLeaks critics", Salon.com 1 Dec 2010, .

I would like to "question your questions" so to speak, and this goes for everybody.
Does the patients come to you asking "I want to be treated with homeopathy and homeopathy only" or do they ask "help me, cure me"?
Do you present yourself as a strict homeopath or as a natural medicine practitioner (as I do)?
If they request homeopathy only, do you then ask their definition of homeopathy and if it does not fit your definition (whatever it is) do you refuse to see them or do you refer them to someone who practices according to their definition or do you treat them anyway as you "know best" or do you spend time with the patient explaining what you do, then deciding together whether you go ahead with the consultation or part ways?
I think those are different scenarios needing different answers, but let's see what you guys say, nothing judgmental but trying to clarify the playing field.
Joe.
 
Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind"
Visit my new website www.naturamedica.webs.com

Hi, Joe --

Yes, these are good things to tease out. It seems to me that they're genuine questions, though, rather than rhetorical ones: questions worth having answers to.

Your position I understand: patients come to you knowing that you identify yourself as practising various "natural" forms of medicine; you do so practise; and therefore you deliver what you've promised, no misunderstanding involved.

I'm not sure it's worth making any question impossible to address by unnecessarily suggesting that the meaning of a key word in it may be something other than what it actually is. We've gone to a lot of trouble on this list, in the course of a few protracted debates, to arrive at a point at which we're all able to say that it's obvious that one thing (and in fact the one thing) that is absolutely irremovable from homoeopathic practice in every case is the comparison of a remedy candidate's pathogenesis with the patient's symptoms.

If, after all this, anybody had the gumption to suggest that it's going to be her denotation of homoeopathic treatment that she'll have in mind when she offers "homoeopathic treatment", disrgarding that her denotation will conflict with that sole requirement of the word as understood by, for instance, the law courts (which, in deciding on the interpretation of a word, by default use -- surprise, surprise! -- the dictionary), then she'd clearly be deceiving herself if not others.

Cheers --

John
I would like to "question your questions" so to speak, and this goes for everybody.
Does the patients come to you asking "I want to be treated with homeopathy and homeopathy only" or do they ask "help me, cure me"?
Do you present yourself as a strict homeopath or as a natural medicine practitioner (as I do)?
If they request homeopathy only, do you then ask their definition of homeopathy and if it does not fit your definition (whatever it is) do you refuse to see them or do you refer them to someone who practices according to their definition or do you treat them anyway as you "know best" or do you spend time with the patient explaining what you do, then deciding together whether you go ahead with the consultation or part ways?
I think those are different scenarios needing different answers, but let's see what you guys say, nothing judgmental but trying to clarify the playing field.
Joe.
 
Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind"
Visit my new website www.naturamedica.webs.com

But I would be very interested to hear your, and others' answers to those questions.
You have started that thread as being an ethical challenge; those questions I asked are very basic ethics of practice.
I do not intend to throw anathema at anyone, I just would like to know how "purists" are conducting their practices and if they practice as they preach.
You already do know how *I* practice but let me detail a little bit further, to get the ball rolling:
- I have had patients calling and saying "I would like to book an acupuncture session for XYZ condition": to them I say that first we have to have a full consultation and determine what is the best approach for their condition; most agree, some are fixed in their acupuncture vision; those I refer to a traditional acupuncturist; why? Because I would feel very uneasy if I realised that another form of therapy would be better, faster and deeper but did acupuncture because the patient wanted it........it is a selfish approach, but it works for the both of us.
- I have had patients asking "Are you a Kentian homeopath?" in which case I answer "No, I am a pragmatic homeopath" and explain my approach to treatment, including the non-homeopathic ways.
Branching out to Liz's latest answer, here are a few cases, very shortly:
- a young mother comes with her 5 weeks old baby, who is crying day and night; seems hungry (fully breast fed) and appears to eat well, but lowish although not abnormal percentile, maybe some abdominal pain without real clear cut modalities (pressure, heat/cold, extension....); questioning Mum, she is eating truckloads of bread and cereal, flour,etc,...... My approach: gluten intolerance in the baby, so completely changed the mother's diet.....surprise, surprise, baby is doing well. I could have gone with the usual suspects, colocynthis, dioscorea, etc,.......but even if they "worked" and helped with the pain and the crying, the exposure to toxic gluten would have continued with further damage. So this is a situation where homeopathic treatment IMO was definitely NOT indicated.
- a patient I have known for years, cured from depression, high blood pressure, etc,... Stopped all his drugs, doing well with no treatment whatsoever any more, phones to tell me that for the last few weeks he had some kind of morning nausea (insert here the usual joke about him being pregnant), gets better over the day but still some "discomfort" during the day although that does not prevent him from doing anything. Also stools are liquid, not painful but not formed. Gave him a few simple tricks to try, no help so he comes for a full consultation: the whole symptomatology is frustrating, does not make any sense and the few straws I use for repertorisation lead to some remedies but none makes real sense........ So we start again from the time before the symptoms appeared.....nothing, nothing, nothing until I asked "any trauma, any injury?" Answer is "no, nothing.........hang on, just before that I fell on my butt and broke my coccyx, chiropractor settled it but I was blue and painful for a few weeks........and yes the nausea started after that". Bingo! Morning nausea after injury = Nat Sulf......but still I examine the patient and realise the caecum is not moving at all and the sigmoid has barely some mobility and motility; this means that those 2 parts of the colon are not working properly and explains why his stools are liquid. This is also covered by Nat Sulf but I have him under my hands, so I do a quick visceral manipulation and lo and behold the "discomfort" disappears, the motility and mobility of the organs comes back......... Patient agreed to an experiment, to wait and see what is happening and not take the Nat Sulf (anyway it was taking a few days to arrive from the pharmacy) and let me know how he is doing. Phone call the next day, extremely happy, no symptom whatsoever, formed stools.......wait. After 2 weeks a hint of the nausea came back, took Nat Sulf, case finished. What do I mean to say here? How could I NOT treat him manually as he was right there, under my hands? THAT would have been highly unethical!!! And I believe that quick starting his colon allowed the Nat Sulf to act deeply at the cellular memory level of the trauma.
Do you see what I mean?
Joe.
 
Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind"
Visit my new website www.naturamedica.webs.com

Dear John
As you seem to find my replies too complicated to understand, here we go again:
It's very simple - and very ethical. You take the case - in the normal way. And it takes as long as it takes.
Then....and this is the difficult part for you, I guess.....you use WHATEVER SEEMS BEST INDICATED FOR THAT PATIENT AT THAT TIME. This takes time - can take ages, as it also involves repertorisation and comparison of remedies and approaches that you have studied. No short cuts here, so you can put that idea to sleep.
So - nothing less than what you do - but I have more strings to my bow should I need them.
Oh - and my conscience is crystal clear.
Liz

Dear Joe,

These are great cases for shedding light on the topic. Thanks. If I've grasped the tail of the right tiger, you're questioning how clearly the communication between practitioner and patient before the consultation can set the boundaries if that communication limits the practitioner to "homoeopathic practice".

Before I go on, does that about sum up the problem you're presenting?

Cheers!

John
But I would be very interested to hear your, and others' answers to those questions.
You have started that thread as being an ethical challenge; those questions I asked are very basic ethics of practice.
I do not intend to throw anathema at anyone, I just would like to know how "purists" are conducting their practices and if they practice as they preach.
You already do know how *I* practice but let me detail a little bit further, to get the ball rolling:
- I have had patients calling and saying "I would like to book an acupuncture session for XYZ condition": to them I say that first we have to have a full consultation and determine what is the best approach for their condition; most agree, some are fixed in their acupuncture vision; those I refer to a traditional acupuncturist; why? Because I would feel very uneasy if I realised that another form of therapy would be better, faster and deeper but did acupuncture because the patient wanted it........it is a selfish approach, but it works for the both of us.
- I have had patients asking "Are you a Kentian homeopath?" in which case I answer "No, I am a pragmatic homeopath" and explain my approach to treatment, including the non-homeopathic ways.
Branching out to Liz's latest answer, here are a few cases, very shortly:
- a young mother comes with her 5 weeks old baby, who is crying day and night; seems hungry (fully breast fed) and appears to eat well, but lowish although not abnormal percentile, maybe some abdominal pain without real clear cut modalities (pressure, heat/cold, extension....); questioning Mum, she is eating truckloads of bread and cereal, flour,etc,...... My approach: gluten intolerance in the baby, so completely changed the mother's diet.....surprise, surprise, baby is doing well. I could have gone with the usual suspects, colocynthis, dioscorea, etc,.......but even if they "worked" and helped with the pain and the crying, the exposure to toxic gluten would have continued with further damage. So this is a situation where homeopathic treatment IMO was definitely NOT indicated.
- a patient I have known for years, cured from depression, high blood pressure, etc,... Stopped all his drugs, doing well with no treatment whatsoever any more, phones to tell me that for the last few weeks he had some kind of morning nausea (insert here the usual joke about him being pregnant), gets better over the day but still some "discomfort" during the day although that does not prevent him from doing anything. Also stools are liquid, not painful but not formed. Gave him a few simple tricks to try, no help so he comes for a full consultation: the whole symptomatology is frustrating, does not make any sense and the few straws I use for repertorisation lead to some remedies but none makes real sense........ So we start again from the time before the symptoms appeared.....nothing, nothing, nothing until I asked "any trauma, any injury?" Answer is "no, nothing.........hang on, just before that I fell on my butt and broke my coccyx, chiropractor settled it but I was blue and painful for a few weeks........and yes the nausea started after that". Bingo! Morning nausea after injury = Nat Sulf......but still I examine the patient and realise the caecum is not moving at all and the sigmoid has barely some mobility and motility; this means that those 2 parts of the colon are not working properly and explains why his stools are liquid. This is also covered by Nat Sulf but I have him under my hands, so I do a quick visceral manipulation and lo and behold the "discomfort" disappears, the motility and mobility of the organs comes back......... Patient agreed to an experiment, to wait and see what is happening and not take the Nat Sulf (anyway it was taking a few days to arrive from the pharmacy) and let me know how he is doing. Phone call the next day, extremely happy, no symptom whatsoever, formed stools.......wait. After 2 weeks a hint of the nausea came back, took Nat Sulf, case finished. What do I mean to say here? How could I NOT treat him manually as he was right there, under my hands? THAT would have been highly unethical!!! And I believe that quick starting his colon allowed the Nat Sulf to act deeply at the cellular memory level of the trauma.
Do you see what I mean?
Joe.
 
Dr. J. Rozencwajg, NMD.
"The greatest enemy of any science is a closed mind"
Visit my new website www.naturamedica.webs.com

Dear Liz,

You've accidentally pasted the same reply to what are now two very simple questions, and unfortunately it responds to neither question.

Are you unable to answer them? Is that because they're still not expressed clearly enough? I don't know whether I have the ability to make them any simpler, but I can give it a try if they're still too complex.

If you simply prefer to reserve your right not to answer them, though, then just say so, and I'm sure the rest of us will understand.

Thanks --

John