Continuing education is vital for homeopaths; the therapy is too deep and the advances in theory and materia medica too rapid and extensive for anyone to be able to sit on their laurels.

Each issue of Heartbeat we'll introduce you to the world's greatest homeopathic teachers who use MacRepertory and ReferenceWorks in their courses. These courses will be very useful to you as you'll learn not only what to do to improve your prescribing but exactly how to do it using your software.

This issue features Richard Pitcairn. Richard teaches a post-graduate course for veterinarians ....

RICHARD PITCAIRN, DVM

Here's what Richard says about teaching with MacRepertory and ReferenceWorks:

I use both Macrepertory and Referenceworks in teaching. I will present a case during class and include in the discussion a graph of the analysis I did using the custom analysis and graph that I prefer for my work. I find the most satisfactory way of analysis is to emphasize both totality, the grading points, and also the number of rubrics. Using carefully selected characteristic symptoms, but a limited number, I can bring up the remedies that have the most similarity to the top of the analysis graph. By combining the number grading with remedy frequency in the selected symptoms, both aspects are emphasized. So I teach this approach using Macrepertory and having the ability to customize the analysis and subsequent graphs is a very useful tool. Another helpful function is the ability to search through multiple repertories. If there is a symptom that I want to emphasize I can search out every mention of it in the repertories that I prefer, these being the Complete, Boenninghausen, Allen's & Knerr's.

Referenceworks comes in as a way to find unusual symptoms. I do not find it as fast as Macrepertory in working up a case but it is deeper and more extensive in the information obtained. There may be an odd animal symptom in a case and the repertory either does not mention it or the rubric found is very limited. So I can go to Referenceworks and search for possible words and bring up other medicines for consideration. I especially appreciate how fast the search is. When I have completed a useful search then I transfer the remedies as a rubric to use in Macrepertory, a very handy feature.

Macrepertory & Referenceworks are nicely integrated so I can search the latter from within Macrepertory, following a rubric into materia medica. Alternatively, I can use the material found in RW back in Macrepetory, so a useful complementation.

The post-graduate course that I have for veterinarians consists of 5 sessions, each session lasting 4 days of class time. During that class we cover the principles of homeopathy, materia medica, use of the repertory and how to understand the distinction between curative, palliative and suppressive responses to remedies. The emphasis is on homeopathy as taught by Hahnemann and Kent and there is much coverage of clinical application and interpretation of cases as they progress through treatment.

Between each class there is a homework assignment which includes case evaluations, personal experience with cases that are brought to class for discussion and evaluation, reading assignment in Kent's Lectures in Homeopathic Philosophy, and materia medica study.

The next course starts March 27, 2003 and is located in Boulder, Colorado. Subsequent sessions are May 15, July 24, September 25 and the last session on November 20 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Interested veterinarians can contact Animal Natural Health Center at (541) 342- 7665 or (888) 290-8454 toll free. Further information and a downloadable brochure is available at www.drpitcairn.com. Also listed there are veterinarians that are available for homeopathic consultation.

We have about 350 veterinarians that have been through this training now & also a national organization, The Academy of Veterinary Homeopathy which represents veterinarians that practice homeopathy. We just finished our annual conference with wonderful cases presented, very heartening to see how well homeopathy can be used in animal treatment. The AVH can be accessed at www.theavh.org.