Tutti Gould DC, ND

"Being a homeopath is like being a private investigator, a doctor, a confessional priest, and a friend all in one."

Dr. Ifeoma Ikenze, author of Menopause and Homeopathy: A Guide for Women in Midlife

It is a privilege to speak with Dr. Ifeoma Ikenze, Nigerian native, American trained medical doctor / homeopath, author of Menopause and Homeopathy: A Guide for Women in Midlife. Dr. Ikenze is a kind, passionate practitioner, intensely engaged in natural healing, whose priority is providing comfort and support to her patients. She started her career as a pediatrician making time for house calls to accommodate sick children. Her journey has led her into the world of natural healing and ultimately to homeopathy where she is an author, practitioner and lecturer living in California. Dr. Ifeoma Ikenze has healing in her genes. Her grandmother was a faith healer and would heal those who came to her simply by placing her hands on them. "And they got well," says Ikenze. "All the time!" Even though Dr. Ikenze herself grew up in an urban environment in Nigeria seeing regular allopathic doctors, her grandmother had a powerful influence on her. "She taught me to think and to search for answers to complex problems. It seems only natural to me that whoever takes the time to think deeply will inevitably arrive at the same natural way of healing, the same natural medicine," says the 55-year-old director of the Elisabeth Centre, in San Anselmo, California.

Dr. Ikenze immigrated to the United States as a teenager and later studied chemistry. She was contemplating graduate studies in environmental chemistry when her teacher was hospitalized for a bleeding ulcer. Her teacher, an immigrant and single woman, had no relatives to care for her, so Dr. Ikenze visited her daily in the hospital. "One day, my teacher turned to me and said: 'You should go to medical school'. This was in April, so I called my friends to find out if it was too late to apply, and they helped me get an application. I was granted an interview at Albert Einstein Medical School in New York and the dean of students said 'We'll take you' right then and there."

She specialised in pediatric medicine, and was practising and living in New York City when she discovered homeopathy. She was interested in a more natural way of treating people when an elderly couple asked her to be their doctor. She took them on even though she was a pediatrician and learned that they were lay homeopaths from England. "They introduced me to the concept of homeopathy and I became intrigued," she recalls. She then went on to receive her homeopathic certificate from the British Institute of Homeopathy.

She found her first homeopathic mentor in San Francisco. She had just arrived in the city and knew nobody. "I opened the phone book and looked up homeopathy and picked any name," she says. Her finger happened to land on Jonathan Shore (a well-respected practitioner in the field). "I called him up and said 'I am new to San Francisco, an MD, a rookie homeopath, can I visit your clinic and possibly sit in with you and observe?' He invited her in, and didn't ask for any money to her surprise. "I came, I sat, and he taught me his approach to discovering the similimum. He had an easy manner, and a genuine, unassuming demeanour. It was very educational for me." She went on to practice homeopathy in her own clinic after that. This was 17 years ago. She started off seeing only children, but her practice has grown into a family practice. "Once they see the results in one child, the rest want to be treated, and embrace homeopathy naturally," says Ikenze, a mother of two and grandmother of three.

As a physician, she started using homeopathy in small ways. "I would give a prescription for a medical drug and tell the patient to keep it in their pocket and then give them a homeopathic remedy to take. I would instruct my patients to only use the prescription if the homeopathic remedy failed to work, and in 99% of the cases, they worked!"

She feels that it is an advantage to be trained in both disciplines. "I can get to know the patient from many angles: from their lab results and their physical symptoms, to their mental, emotional, and spiritual condition."

She has treated many different cases this way, such as long-standing ulcerative colitis, severe asthma, chronic seizure disorders with convulsions, and osteoporosis.

Her advice to lay homeopaths is to encourage their patients to seek a medical examination and diagnosis by a medical doctor, and then return to homeopathy for the treatment. That way, they can verify their progress with diagnostic tools, and truly be healed. Even if a patient is taking medication prescribed by a doctor, they can still take and benefit from homeopathic remedies.

Dr. Ikenze almost never uses the repertory; she feels that using a repertory is limiting because it may not include all the remedies. "A repertory is only as good as a computer; it will spit out only what you put into it," she says. "Instead, I study the remedy in great depth, and imagine the picture of the remedy, the conditions it can treat, and the characteristics of the remedy. Then I go through my mental "Rolodex" of all my patients to determine who would benefit from this remedy. I get an "aha!" eureka feeling when I am studying a remedy and then think of the people I could give it to."

She feels that being a good homeopath requires being open to the patient, intuiting who they are, and having the ability to read their body language and go beyond the lines. She also feels that homeopathy is meant to evolve. "We just have to be willing to break away from the rigid ideas of homeopathy," says Ikenze, a free-thinking woman. "The homeopathic community is beginning to expand its horizons." She feels there is a danger in sticking too rigidly to the advice of Hahnemann, who lived 200 years ago. "We need to consider where we are today, what conditions we face, and what our patients are presenting with. There is a drive for newer remedies and newer ways of using them."

Dr. Ikenze feels that homeopathy is not such an easy practice. "There never seems to be a definitive end to it," she says. "Every new patient is a challenge that isn't lessened by having treated 100 similar conditions successfully. Because with this next 101st patient, I may very well not be able to find the remedy! The success doesn't necessarily build on itself. It is so different from allopathy, which has an algorithm, a protocol that is so easy to follow: a patient has an earache, you prescribe x antibiotic, next...even with complicated conditions such as pneumonia, there is a treatment plan; no deep thinking is required from the physician." In homeopathy, she says, every single faculty is needed at the same time to observe, hear what may not be said, see what is not seen, smell, feel, intuit... "And it all comes with such high expectations! All my patients come by referral from friends, neighbours, relatives and they arrive saying 'I was told about you and how you treated so and so, and you cured them'."

There is one thing she needed to unlearn from her years of medical training. "In med school, they teach you to keep a glass wall as a divider from taking on a patient's pathology," Dr. Ikenze explains. "But as a homeopath, if I truly want to understand the patient and arrive at the right remedy, I have to do away with the wall and cross the barrier and enter into the patient metaphorically in order to feel what they feel. Just like actors and actresses do to portray characters. It's like becoming Hamlet for an hour, then Romeo the next hour, with a 5 minute break in between." She says that taking on the pain and sorrow is a painful process, but it helps her mature and grow as a person. At the end of the day, she enters her garden to "wash" it all off to become her own self again. Between patients she also has a "break state" in order to be clear to take on the next patient.

For the future of homeopathy, she is optimistic. "I am excited by the work and teachings of Rajan Sankaran, whose method is one step ahead in the appreciation of the deeper layers of the invisible energies in creation, which can be harnessed." She compares it to the discovery of the energy found in the electron, when humanity was once oblivious to it. "Then all at once the discovery of this power occurs, and it becomes beyond human capacity to understand it. It's the same with homeopathy; it is another facet of the same power. When one comes to that point, it becomes mind-blowing! That's where I feel I'm at right now..."

With this enthusiasm, she is brewing her second book, which will focus on how homeopathy works on the inner human being and how it can heal emotional disorders. Dr. Ikenze is following in her grandmother's footsteps and taking healing to a new level. Her grandmother would be proud.

Interviewer and Author of this article, Tutti Gould DC, ND, is a naturopathic physician living and practicing in Sutton, Quebec.

If you are interested in making an appointment with Dr. Ikenze, or would like to follow up with her professionally, her contact information is below:

Dr. Ifeoma Ikenze
915 Sir Francis Drake Blvd.
San Anselmo, California
94960

415-258-9600