Rural based Community Orientation for Homeopathy

Dr.Munir Ahammed
Rural based Community Orientation for Future Practitioners of Homeopathy

Preamble
Community health is an evolving and dynamic sector in healthcare domain that aims to protect, promote and revitalise people’s mental, physical and social well-being. It underlines prevention rather than cure through collective actions to address the fundamental causes of disease and foster conditions and contexts in which communities or population groups can lead healthy lives.

The International Conference on Primary Health Care Alma-Ata in 1978 underlined the importance of primary health care as effective means of achieving comprehensive worldwide health. In the meanwhile, Homeopathy has emerged as viable option for the health policy planners to position its services in the community health context. Recent efforts to deploy homeopathy in epidemic situations like Chkungunya and H1N1 have showcased the resolve of health policy makers to trust homeopathy in community health care.

To match this emerging trend, the homeopathic undergraduate curriculum in India has laid sufficient emphasis on the community orientation of homeopathic practice. In this regard, a radical restructuring of the rural postings of BHMS internship is suggested to assess the impact of homeopathy in community health. Therefore, a structured internship program for rural based community orientation for the future practitioners of homeopathy is highly substantiated.

Purpose
The purpose of this orientation is to provide a structured process that will help newly qualified homeopathic doctors who are in the internship phase of their training to function effectively in their future roles, with an overall goal of fostering individual, organizational, and community effectiveness in improving community health through homeopathy.

Objectives : At the end of the posting, the learners will be able to –

• Explain the influence of social-culture aspect on the individual perception of health and illness
• Discuss how community development affect changes in the lifestyles and epidemiologic transition of disease pattern
• Describe health promotion aspects for prevention of chronic disease
• Determine the social factors which may influence the prognosis of specific diseases
• Demonstrate the patient education skills as part of the management of patient’s problem.
• Demonstrate relevant, effective communication skills when talking to the patient, patient’s family and other medical staff
• Identify verbal and non-verbal behaviour when communicating with the patients, their family and the medical staff

Logistics
Number of base clinics, Number of mobile units, Faculty available, Transportation facility, any other;

Procedure:
The procedure is aimed at introducing the internees to the community, its people, their health care needs, and the process of working as a community based team by the following activities –

• Clinical services in the form of taking the cases, analysing them in the context of socio-environmental factors and providing therapeutic care
• Health education to population on disease prevention and health promotion including nutrition and lifestyle counselling
• Sensitisation to research projects like ‘slow learners’, ‘women’s health’, etc.
• Seminars, Poster presentation and Journal club on medical humanities, social and clinical research methods, etc. 

Evaluation:
A 360° evaluation – continuous and end-of-the-posting, including self-, peer-, supervisor- and external-evaluation, as per the evaluation parameters prepared for the purpose.

Outcomes:  At the end of the posting, the internee would –

• have become sensitive to community health needs and identify him/herself with such healthcare delivery
• apply the principles of homeopathy for the individual and epidemic morbid expressions in the community
• develop team spirit for the promotion of community health
• make proactive efforts to actively assist community health efforts