What Happens When an MD Discovers Homeopathy? Healing.
By Cash Casia Leo, DIHom, CCH, RSHom (NA)
Dr. Nancy Weiss first began her progression into professional healthcare as a Physical Education major at Queen’s College in New York. Queen’s attracted this star pupil with a terrific scientific research program in physical education including physiology, kinesiology, etc. She then continued on to the University of California, Berkeley for a masters in Phys. Ed., and later also began a Ph.D. program there.
During her time on the West Coast at the dawn of the holistic living concept when the Whole Foods movement (predated by Alice Waters’s restaurant Chez Panisse, well before the advent of Whole Foods), wellness lifestyle, exercise, and herbal medicine were mainstream growing trends at a time, Nancy’s ideas of comprehensive health approaches were transformed. After transferring to Columbia Teachers College in New York and working in an exercise physiology program with a cardiologist, she then decided to go to medical school. She attended 4 years of medical school at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and then accepted a fellowship in rheumatology and began practice in a time before “managed care” where she enjoyed having more time with her individual patients. She also then attended the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. While she worked in a drug-centered profession, she also thoroughly enjoyed counseling her patients in nutrition, exercise, and general holistic wellness lifestyle concepts.
As a physician in New York, Weiss had a patient who introduced her to homeopathy. Dr. Weiss always has had an open mind in terms of modalities of care, and so the patient introduced Dr. Weiss to Sylvia Faddis (a well-known homeopathic practitioner who also studied with George Vithoulkas). Weiss then began to attend various homeopathic lectures when available and she studied here and there as her interest in homeopathy grew.
Around this same time, Nancy developed asthma. After a severe asthma attack that landed her in the ER among colleagues who were able to manage her acute episode, but not able to help her to recover completely from this evolving chronic condition, she sought out a homeopath who was the president of the New York Homeopathic Association. In less than six months, her homeopath was able to help her to discontinue all steroids and meds for her asthma. This made a great impression on Dr. Weiss, and she began to delve deeper into her own homeopathic education. She read Science of Homeopathy by George Vithoulkas and began to attend David Kramer’s lectures and educational seminars in New York. David Kramer also studied with George Vithoulkas at IACH in Greece for 4 years. Through David Kramer’s training, Nancy was privy to observing some videos of Professor George Vithoulkas’ lectures, which truly resonated with her, and she began to try to figure out how to fit this modality of healing into her own practice.
However, she realized that she still needed more education in order to properly arrive at the correct remedy and potency in actual practice. Some time passed, and she later did consulting work in bio-identical hormone treatment while wintering in Florida, but her own health began to deteriorate as she was dealing with some depression. She decided to seek out a homeopath once more. She wanted someone who was trained by George Vithoulkas to treat her as she considered him to be the “gold-standard” in proper classical homeopathic treatment. She also wanted a homeopath who was associated with IACH. After finding the right homeopath and having had successful treatment, Dr. Weiss was re-introduced to the notion of attending IACH through her new homeopath. The idea of expanding her understanding of homeopathy was very interesting to her - especially since she had now retired from her practice and had more time to focus on educating herself again.
Currently, Nancy is now in her second year of the North American Practitioner Program and is so happy to have the time to now immerse herself in her homeopathic studies.
“In my perfect world, every patient would have a homeopath and a physician working together”, says Dr. Weiss.
Why IACH? Nancy believes that IACH has a strategic syllabus that includes an organized approach to the science of homeopathy. She understood early on in her journey towards homeopathy that there is so much more to the perfect prescription than learning materia medica without a context. There is a necessary structure in prescribing in order that any homeopath should arrive at the same correct remedy for any given case, and Nancy felt that George Vithoulkas’ program provided this. Now, after having completed half of the program, she can definitively attest to this intense structure that exists within the curriculum at IACH. In medical school, this structure would include physiology, pathology, and anatomy - and then put them together in a format in order to understand and treat disease processes, and Nancy feels that while homeopathy is a very different language, she has found a similar formula here at IACH.
“Homeopathy is much harder - it was easier to be a doctor ... as a skilled physician one ignores all the information that doesn’t support a diagnosis, but with homeopathy it ALL matters. Homeopathy is very complex”, says Nancy. However, she says that understanding the Levels of Health is most helpful in understanding how much one can accomplish with a homeopathic prescription. She believes that George Vithoulkas’ theory of the Levels of Health assists the practitioner immensely in one’s approach to treatment. “The Theory of Levels of Health is amazing! I don’t know how [anyone] can know what to expect when they treat someone if [they are] not using Level of Health, ... Levels of Health takes the mystery out of [the prognosis]”.
What Does Dr. Nancy Weiss Love Best About IACH? “All things Vithoulkas! He is a role model. I love his lectures, and his Strategies in Prescribing is a remarkable resource.” Nancy also commented that she truly appreciates Vithoulkas Compass for repertorization. She feels that it’s the next best thing to “having access to Professor Vithoulkas’ brain to help guide the student/practitioner while studying a case”.
Nancy also stated that Cristina [Horvath] is a “phenomenal coordinator and facilitator of this program”. Dr. Weiss went on to express that IACH instructor Cristina Horvath is extremely intelligent, knowledgeable, patient, and that Cristina creates an amazing safe space for the class to learn and grow in.
“It’s not like you just get all this information (and there is SO much information) - having Cristina [Horvath] there to guide you through the course is wonderful”. Weiss also appreciates the diversity of her peers - and while some might not have a medical or health professional background, they bring a great deal to the table ... often the correct remedy.
Nancy’s Future Plans With Homeopathy: Nancy hasn’t decided where her skills might fit best in the homeopathic community. She has expressed a great interest in clinical research, and the inclusion of homeopathic medicine in legislation and politics, but ultimately her goal is to bring this modality of healing into the lives of those closest to her.
The International Academy of Classical Homeopathy is delighted to educate students of homeopathy such as Dr. Nancy Weiss who understand the great importance of homeopathic care in mainstream primary care, and who promote the value of Professor George Vithoulkas’ theory of the Levels of Health. For more complete details about our North American Practitioner Program, please email info@vithoulkas.college website: https://vithoulkas.college