RCHM – Putting Herbs Into Practice

RCHM – Putting Herbs Into Practice – Course Information

Getting the diagnosis right
Herb-drug interactions
Constructing a CHM formula

Getting the diagnosis right – Applying Bian Bing, disease diagnosis for good clinical practice – Inga Heese
“To diagnose a condition correctly and to find the appropriate strategy and method of treatment, it is essential to identify the Chinese medicine disease-symptom first; this procedure is called bian bing” (Maciocia, G). Diagnosing a patient correctly is the most fundamental skill a practitioner can offer his or her patients.
Chinese medicine has a very comprehensive and extremely well documented clinical methodology, encompassing disease diagnoses (bian bing) and pattern diagnosis (bian zheng) [which in itself is subdivided into nine pattern: the eight principles, six channels, qi/blood/body fluids, channels and collaterals, zang-fu, wei/qi/ ying/ xue, aetiology, pathogenic factors, triple burner]. In this short course Inga will focus on disease differentiation, Bian bing, which after many years of practice she has found to be most crucial in determining a diagnosis and treatment principle for a patient.
She believes that only equipped with a pattern diagnosis (which seems to be most commonly done in practice) but without a disease diagnosis a practitioner is not able to write an effective formula, and hence not achieve a good clinical outcome.

Herb-drug interactions – Rebecca O’Cleirigh
Many of our patients are already taking pharmaceutical drugs when they come to see us. This short session aims to give you the confidence to prescribe alongside these medications, the insight as to when not to and the skills you need to delve into specific medications when the best of those two options is unclear.

Constructing a CHM formula – Dr.Andrew Flower
]Writing a balanced and effective formula is something we all aspire to as practitioners of CHM. Yet it is also a challenging proposition and many newly graduated CHM practitioners feel un-prepared to write their own individualised herbal formulae.
This lecture will review some basic principles of writing a prescription including modifying classical formulae, 3 different ways to organise a formula, and using clear treatment principles to provide structure and focus to a treatment.

Can I attend?
This course is suitable for:

Seminars are open to all RCHM members (all categories) and graduates of accredited herbal courses.

What will I learn ?
Learning Outcomes for the session are: 1) The disease differentiation (bian bing) teaching will allow you to:

Come to a diagnosis

Focus the treatment on a dominant symptom whilst also being rooted in the pattern differentiation (bian zheng)

Monitor treatment effectiveness

Assess if treatment outcomes are being or have been achieved

Talk to patients in a manner that they understand.

You will gain confidence about when to prescribe alongside medications and when to be cautious.

You will learn to investigate medications for specific interactions and how to assess for general ones. This will involve using search engines and online resources such as the BNF to explore current knowledge and research.

You will refresh and add to your knowledge of writing a balanced and effective herbal formula.

In addition it is anticipated that you will gain confidence in your practice as a result of attending the seminar/s. The RCHM aims to build up a practitioner network of nurturing peer support from the seminar series.

Information you need to know before booking

Refreshments and lunch sadly are not provided.

You will need to bring a pen or pencil, we will be providing everything else; full colour course notes, all of the training equipment etc.

There is no formal assessment, but a quiz style knowledge check at the end of the day will allow practitioners to check their own knowledge from each day.

Supporting material and PDF files for the lecture slides will be available to all participants electronically via Moodle upon full payment for each day.

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