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Clinical courses in Homoeopathy have
been offered since the early days of prescribing in a
variety of locations by a wealth of talented educators
around the globe. Students and practitioners often travel
vast distances at great personal expense in order to
understand better the tools of their science and to
perfect their art in prescribing. An opportunity to widen
oneΉs view of the Materia Medica, to experience first hand
different methods of prescribing and to see a variety of
live cases not only helps one grow as a prescriber, but as
a person as well.
One opportunity to achieve this scope of understanding
awaits students and practitioners in a small clinic in a
northern suburb of Mumbai on the west coast of India. Dr.
Rajesh Shah and his wife Dr. Rupal Shah, both classical
Homeopaths and educators, team-teach a three-week
intensive course every February for foreign practitioners
to further the understanding of Homoeopathic prescribing.
This past FebruaryΉs class which I personally attended
consisted of eight practitioners representing five
countries. The course itself provided a once in a lifetime
experience, India as the back-drop provided the adventure.
The main requirement for participants of the course was to
come with an open mind for learning. This requirement was
a pre-requisite for anyone staying for even a short period
of time in the liveliest, most densely populated suburb in
Mumbai. What the clinical experience impressed on the
intellect , the journey to and from the clinic impressed
on the emotions tenfold. One simply could not walk a block
without experiencing at least 10-20 rubrics of the Mind
section simultaneously. India is a place where the senses
will never atrophy from a lack of stimulation.
The daily schedule easily satisfied the hunger to learn
starting with Materia Medica lectures which were taught in
the mornings by Dr. Rupal Shah. For three hours each day
participants were graphically taken on a journey through
all aspects of a remedy straight from her vault of
knowledge and personal clinical experience. Her depth of
understanding as well as the passion she held for the
peculiarities of the materia medica infected the
atmosphere to the point that if you didnΉt end up proving
the remedy by the end of the lecture, you simply were not
paying attention.
The evening sessions at the clinic were conducted by Dr.
Rajesh Shah who taught an organized and well-paced
approach to case taking, analysis and evaluation,
prescribing, and long term case management. Each lecture
followed a progressive flow of strategies involved in
building the totality of a case. When sufficient ground
was covered in theory, the real case-taking started when
the patients were called in for their consultations. This
was where the gap between theory and practice was bridged;
where the charismatic teaching of a practitioner was put
to the test by a mob of suffering patients in a packed
waiting room. This is what we all came to see. As the
procession of beautiful sariΉs filed in, one after
another, there was a realization that the cultural
differences being observed would shed new light on
previously stereotyped remedy pictures.
Most patients were accompanied by relatives, all telling
in competing levels of excitement how the medicine had
taken away their suffering. After the first five hours of
follow-ups, it occurred to most participants that there
seemed to be only two kinds of patients coming to see Dr.
Shah: patients rapidly moving toward the direction of
cure, or cured patients. The consistency of cure was
impressive.
Consultations in Hindi were translated by Dr. Shah and the
participants were invited to examine and question the
patients at any time. At the close of the first evening
the general consensus of the participants was that there
simply were not enough good out-of-work actors from The
³Bollywood Actor Factory² to cover the volume of patients
filing in. These were people who had truly benefited from
Homeopathy and that message could be read on their faces.
What was witnessed that evening was encouraging. For
myself, two realizations were driven home: 1) Homoeopathy
works and 2) Any practitioner can achieve this level of
success if they apply themselves. Although unquestionably
brilliant, dynamic and driven, Dr. Shah was not a
magician. He was a person fulfilling the goals of an
achievable endeavor: practicing the science and the art of
Homoepathy and doing well.
Throughout the entire course, individual case strategies
were discussed in-depth. Often patients had to sit through
the banter of the peanut gallery while their symptoms were
evaluated from conflicting points of view in four
different languages. The collective knowledge of the
participants could be likened to an orchestra tuning up
before a performance. Dr. Shah as maestro guided the
thoughts both receiving as well as giving key points which
led the group to create perfectly tuned case totalities.
Each case was as dynamic as the analyzing process which
eventually led to the prescription.
Dr. ShahΉs clinical tips were spontaneous, and though the
objectives of the course were structured, learning had no
boundaries. One of the main objectives of the course was
to teach a strategy by where all the participants could
collectively arrive at a similar understanding of a case.
Only through this method would our individual practices be
successful. If fixed philosophies or rigid dogma prevented
us as practitioners from operating in a practical manner,
we would not get the results we wanted from Homeopathic
prescribing and our patients would not benefit. This as
the most important objective reinforced the knowledge we
all had of the principles of classical Homeopathic
prescribing. Dr. ShahΉs therapeutic lectures provided the
insight into what is common in disease allowing us
recognize what is uncommon in the patient and what is
uncommon in a common symptom. The variety of patients seen
during the course finely-tuned the powers of observation
both for the experienced practitioners attending and the
practitioners starting out.
Practical skills were also taught pertaining to all
aspects of running a practice from simply writing out an
organized case to administrative issues and this proved
key to some of the participants previously working in a
method of organized chaos. Dr. ShahΉs strength as a
practitioner matched his talent as a teacher as humour,
compassion and strength of character were the icing on the
cake.
This intensive clinical course holds for participants an
opportunity to experience the best of what Homoeopathy can
offer. I highly recommend it to those in search of a
highly seasoned and enlightening journey down the path of
understanding the tools of our trade.
by Laura Fenton, Japan
Like all good homoeopaths Rajesh and Rupal are clear about
their mission! The world needs more homoeopaths. It needs
homoeopaths who can prescribe confidently and accurately
and who can manage the whole range of cases likely to come
their way. How will this best be achieved? By being down
to earth!
That's exactly how Rajesh describes himself and the
Phenomenological Approach he has developed. He insists on
working with the direct experiences (signs and symptoms)
of the patient. His observation is that it is unnecessary
to speculate about a pre-existing state of symbolic
representation of the patients suffering. The symptoms
themselves are concrete and available to our senses. These
should be our primary concern. They will furnish us with a
highly individual description of the patient. In the
remedy provings we find analogous information: provers
produced significant changes marked by groups of symptoms
when undergoing drug testing.
Rajesh's method depends on identifying significant
expressions and representative groups of symptoms in the
patient's history and finding as precise a reflection of
these as possible in the suffering of a single prover. For
us it was a delight to open up Allen's Encyclopaedia and
use such precise information in this way. It seemed to
represent the best in a scientific application of
homeopathic principles. And it was exciting too!!
Rajesh graduated as a gold medallist from the Bombay
Homeopathic Medical College. Both Rajesh and Rupal
practice in homoeopathic hospitals and medical colleges in
Bombay. They also run their own general practices. Their
teaching was crammed with the clinical experience amassed
from managing a large and diverse caseload. This, and well
selected videos, gave their teaching tremendous breadth.
Rajesh and Rupal took to stress the totality, finding
significant symptoms not just in the mental state of the
patient, but also in the individual expression of
particular symptoms. They also stressed the organ or
system affinities of illness as a necessary part of the
whole.
They taught in Devon, London, Leeds, Glasgow and
Darlington, contributing to college-teaching, teaching-
clinics and a seminar. The clinics were particularly
well-received. Rajesh saw practitioner's difficult cases
and discussed his approach with the participants. It was
very useful to have such an immediate appreciation of the
method in practice and participants re-marked at the
clarity with which very complex cases could be understood.
Rajesh and Rupal exude enthusiasm. As experienced teachers
of homoeopathy, they were well- organized in their
presentation of their material. Their commitment and the
sheer joy with which they taught were truly infectious.
They now have many friends in the UK, all of whom will be
wishing them a speedy return! |
