Complementary medicine

I clawed back some function, decided to change career with a jump in the dark and enrolled to train with the Faculty of Homeopathy in London, qualifying as a homeopath in 1992. Since then I have studied widely as my interest has always been ‘the truth’, rather than any particular therapeutic approach or indeed getting rich. This has included a four-year Honours Degree in Medical Herbalism at the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine, a two-year training in healing at the College of Psychic Studies, London, two years at the Dynamis School for Advanced Homeopathic Studies a training in naturopathic detoxification and many other things too.
I worked at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital for many years before co-founding and medically directing one of London’s first large centres for complementary medicine. I have worked in many other settings too, including other hospitals, private clinics, naturopathic clinics, homeopathy centres, charity funded centres and with GP’s. I have also appeared on television and radio and written for/been featured in the press, experiences that put me off the shallower world of glamour.

Further illness

In 1997 I was diagnosed with a large nerve facial nerve tumour (from a previous blow to the head) for which I had surgery. I was very lucky to survive the perilous 11-hour operation without the disfiguring surgery I’d signed up to, though the tumour could not be fully removed. Early on in the op a small artery started squirting directly at the surgeon. All his attempts to stop it failed, forcing him to revise the plan and abandon the disfigurement option. I am told that inevitably the tumour will regrow but thankfully this hasn’t happened, so far. Since then I have also acquired a paralysed half-diaphragm somehow and had a very serious traumatic brain injury that again I was lucky to survive.

Consequences

All this serious illness (there is more I haven’t mentioned) has reduced me greatly but it has also given back, in different ways. It has changed a standard directed career into a worthwhile and true vocation, one I happily give myself to rather than resent. It has clarified my understanding and equipped me with more resources than typical taught-medicine would have. While I acknowledge that most non-pharmaceutical medicine is unproven according to ‘the’ science, I find these resources very helpful in my practice. Certainly complementary medicine doesn’t offer a complete alternative to normal medical diagnosis or treatment. It sits alongside it and I have found all medical systems to be incomplete in fact.