For homeopath Dr. Lauri Grossman, tikkun olam (healing the world) is more than a Jewish value she learned growing up in the heart of the Jewish community of Brighton Beach in Brooklyn and later the suburbs of New York. Her position as chair of the Department of International Affairs for the American Medical College of Homeopathy in Phoenix draws on her years of practicing and promoting homeopathy to help people in need around the world. For instance, she was in Haiti just two weeks after the 2010 earthquake helping disaster victims. In 2013 she helped treat people in underserved communities in Afghanistan. She participates in meetings at the United Nations, where she helped obtain NGO status for AMCH. Dr. Grossman also taught a program on homeopathy at the medical school at Israel’s Ben Gurian University; the course included best practices for working with diverse cultures.
While many people confuse homeopathic medicine with Eastern medicine and with herbology, Dr. Grossman says homeopathy is actually a highly regulated system of medicine that relies on natural medications developed over the past two centuries. All homeopathic remedies are approved by the FDA as over-the-counter medications. Not all homeopaths are doctors, but Dr. Grossman also holds a doctor of chiropractic degree.
“Homeopathy is a complete system of medicine that involves treating the individual with highly diluted substances, given mainly in tablet form, with the aim of triggering the body’s natural system of healing,” explains Dr. Grossman. “Based on an individual’s specific symptoms, a homeopath will match the most appropriate medicine to each patient.”
To truly understand homeopathy, Dr. Grossman says you need to hear the story of its origin. Homeopathy was founded by German physician Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), who was so appalled by many of the side effects of his era’s popular medical treatments using heavy metals and bleeding that he retired from medicine and became an editor and translator of medical papers. Translating a paper about treating malaria with quinine (made from cinchona bark), he contacted the researcher to ask why quinine reduced the fever, chills and diarrhea caused by malaria. The author didn’t know why it worked, so Hahnemann decided to see what the substance would do in low doses for people without the disease. Surprisingly, when given to healthy people, it caused the same symptoms it cured in malaria victims. Dr. Grossman says that made the doctor wonder if he could find other natural substances that caused specific symptoms in healthy people, and in turn would improve conditions in people suffering from those symptoms. For his tests he asked medical students to take small doses of substances and carefully record their symptoms in exacting detail. Knowing people experience watery eyes when slicing onions, he experimented with allium cepa, a low-dose onion extract. He found that the substance caused allergy symptoms in healthy people and could alleviate symptoms in people suffering from allergies.
“There are now 4,000 substances proven with homoeopathy,” says Dr. Grossman, adding that this phenomenon is called the Law of Similars and is the basis of homeopathy.
As someone with professional ties to both conventional medical schools and homeopathic institutions, Dr. Grossman is well equipped to discuss the symbiosis of homeopathy and western medicine.
“Homeopathy is extremely effective in the treatment of chronic disease,” she explains. “Therefore, a homeopath can offer promise to patients who have suffered from disorders that have not responded to conventional care or that can only be managed (not cured) with conventional treatment.” For instance, she notes that when treating allergies with allium cepa, patients’ symptoms decline in severity and duration each allergy season as the immune system strengthens.
“Many physicians are happy to know a well-trained homeopath to whom they can refer their more stubborn cases,” says Dr. Grossman. “I work with gynecologists who want help with menopausal women suffering from hot flashes, mood swings and loss of sex drive. There are pediatricians who want help with children who get repeated ear infections or recurrent asthma attacks for whom medications are only keeping emergent crises from worsening, but for whom mediations are not curing the underlying problem.”
Since homeopathic medicines do not have harmful side effects, a homeopath can treat patients who are sensitive to or allergic to conventional medications or to patients who wish to explore a natural approach that enhances the immune system before turning to medications that may depress the immune function, explains Dr. Grossman. Coming from a family of philanthropists, Dr. Grossman says she wanted to help people and so became a pre-med student at Cornell in the 1970s. “The climate at large East Coast universities at the time was one of questioning and exploring,” she says, noting she heard speakers from “an infinite number of healing methods from all different cultures … I was impressed by many, but when I saw the profound way that homeopathy heals, I found my calling and could practice nothing else.”
She says the closeness of homeopathy to Jewish views on health is highlighted by the fact that the Prayer of Maimonides (the 12th century Jewish physician and Torah scholar) is recited in its entirety by homeopathic college graduates at their commencement ceremony. “As chair of the Dept. of Humanism at AMCH, I review this prayer in detail with all graduating students. The ties between homeopathy and Judaism abound and are seen in each and every line.”
Her ties to Israel extend beyond lecturing there. She says both her sons lived in Israel after college, though both have since returned to New York.
“My older son, David, married an Israeli woman, and my younger son, Asher, did his medical training at Ben Gurion University’s Medical School for International Health in Be’er Sheva.”
She says her boyfriend, Howard Levy, is a poet, who, after experiencing the benefits of homeopathy firsthand, describes homeopathy as metaphorical medicine.
“I want to bring to people what will heal them most deeply so that they live creatively, pursue their passions joyfully and live a fulfilling life,” she concludes.
Homeopathy Conference and Fundraising Dinner
Sept. 20 and 21 American Medical College of Homeopathy’s Annual Conference Scottsdale features guest speakers Linda Johnston, MD, and Frans Vermeulen. Johnston and Vermeulen will present, “Inner Dynamics – a Remedy’s Perspective.”
Second Annual Celebrity Chef Collaboration
Sept. 20 Roseo Design Center features local chefs demonstrating and sharing their recipes live with the audience as AMCH ambassadors present the health benefits associated with each dish. Includes wine tastings, silent auction, cash raffle and more. Register for one or both events at amcofh.org/2014-conference.
