AUSTRALIAN
HOMOEOPATHIC
ASSOCIATION
(NSW Branch)

The 6th Australian Homoeopathic Medicine
Conference 2008

Alastair Gray

ADH (NZ) RSHom (UK) DSH (UK) PCH (UK) PCHom (Malay) BAHons (NZ)

Developing Homœopathic Practice: Towards a Framework of Working with Multiple Interventions

Abstract
In the current health care environment there is the constant need to examine existing situations and initiate developments to move practice forward in positive and effective ways. This need necessitates practitioners to embark on local projects, which analyse specific issues, develop proposals for change and implement these proposals in practice. This paper aims to support, facilitate and evaluate the practice development process and synthesise strategies in practice and benefit patient experience In this reflective piece, the area I have chosen from my working environment to focus on is patient compliance in 21st century Homœopathy.

In the main, homeopathic medicine has remained unchanged since its inception. But are our patients the same? Biologically, of course, but what about their behaviour and their expectations? Integrating other medical interventions into the working paradigm of Homœopathy is a fundamental issue of practice that needs developing. Our patients are behaving badly, if you take some of the principle attitudes and philosophies of the founders. In the West it seems that patients do what they want. They grab at techniques and treatments and modalities in a way not done in the past. Treatment plans become clouded and results hard to determine. There are clear reasons why this aspect of homeopathy needs developing, the least being poor communication with other modalities, poor communication with our patients, and poor perception of homœopaths as being ‘precious’ by practitioners of other modalities. Most importantly, there are cases with unsuccessful outcomes. An examination of multiple interventions in Homœopathy throws up a number of questions, most notably how we market ourselves in the 21st century, how we treat complicated cases of people living 21st century lifestyles, how we teach our students, how we possibly need a reorientation of our attitudes to the simillimum as an aspiration as opposed to a close similar, how we maintain our relationships with our clients, how we measure the result of our prescriptions and gauge efficacy, how we evaluate the second prescription, how we conceive of the notion of success, how we publish our cured cases.

Keywords
Homeopathy, Homœopathy, Clinical audit, Integrative Medicine, Research, Treatment plans, Direction of cure, Second prescription, Hahnemann.

Biography
Alastair Gray has completed his Masters in Homœopathy and Research from the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. The author of five books and numerous articles in research most notably conducting provings, Alastair practices in the inner east and west of Sydney and manages a colourful clinic. He lectures in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the UK and the US teaching undergraduate Homœopathy. Furthermore he presents seminars on numerous topics from the Living Organon of Medicine, Treating Male Patients, and the myriad of modern and old provings that he has conducted over the years of remedies such as Tea Tree, Box Jellyfish, Irukandji, Waratah and White Tailed Spider. Furthermore he runs the postgraduate Fusion Sessions course committed to transforming competent homœopathic and naturopathic graduates into dynamic, confident, busy and thriving providers of natural medicine.

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