Empirical and Evidence-based Homeopathy: Back to Basics.

Abstract

That the theme of this issue is Back to Basics is a critical reminder of the problems faced by the Australian homœopathic community. This year, 2013, its practitioners may face political marginalisation and economic asphyxiation. The right of Australian consumers to choose and be rebated for homœopathy may be restricted by the National Health and Medical Research Council, a commission of the Australian Federal Government, as well as by the actions of the Friends of Science in Medicine . Practitioners at the coalface practice a combination of empirical and evidence-based homœopathy. The results presented in this paper are part of a qualitative research study exploring the reasoning and decision making practices of Australian homœopaths. After gaining ethical approval from the University of Sydney in 2009, I observed, interviewed and recorded 12 participants in urban and regional Australia (2009-2012). Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to explore and understand the participants’ clinical reasoning behaviours and experiences, this paper asks why homœopathy needs to go back to basics. Their experiences strongly suggest the need for rigorous reproducible methods for the benefit of patients and for the sustainability of homœopathy. Keywords: homœopathy, clinical reasoning, empiricism, evidence, evidence-based medicine.