Speakers

Dr Marc has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and many books and technical texts on wellness and natural medicine including ‘Understanding the Global Spa Industry’ and the landmark text ‘Herbs and Natural Supplements: An Evidence-Based Guide’ along with the illustrated children’s books “Bing & Bang Begin” and  “The Beautiful Mare and the Boy Who Gave Thanks”.  

 Dr Marc is a Past Board Member of the Global Wellness Summit, past President of the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association, founder of the Extreme Wellness Institute, Beautiful Water, and Pronoia Press, co-owner of Extremely Alive Wellness Tonics and Maruia Hot Springs and the Medical Director of the Peninsula Hot Springs Group, and Director of Research, Education and Product Development for Gather By. You can find him at www.drmarc.co. 

She Holds graduate and post-graduate qualifications in Western Herbal Medicine, Health, Education and Community Welfare.  She has local, state and federal experience in community development, youthwork, child protection, eDemocracy, policy making and disaster management.  Currently she manages the Somerset Community Supported Herb Clinics in Southeast Queensland and is an inaugural board member of the Somerset Health Hubs Cooperative.  She is undertaking a PhD at the National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine examining the concept of community-supported herbalism and cooperative models of healthcare.

Community based healthcare provides affordability, equality and healthcare justice and an avenue for people to participate in planning and implementing healthcare. Community-focused models of practice are consistent with the holistic philosophy of herbal medicine. However, little is known about the extent to which herbal medicine is included within community models of healthcare.

Kerrie will share stories of models of community herbalism from across the globe to draw out characteristics of community herbal medicine practice common regardless of the location or situation.

Key Take-Aways

•  Considerations for establishing a community herbal practice
• Examples of community herbal practice
• The benefits of community in herbal medicine practice
• Looking for unexpected collaborators and partners

He is the author of the popular Phytotherapy Reference Des, now in its fifth edition having sold 16,000 copies worldwide, and the recently launched companion web app featuring herb-drug interactions and clinical research of all herbal medicines used in Australia

His company Eusano Healthcare, has pioneered whole body and local hyperthermia, photobiomodulation and infrared healing in Australia, importing and distributing ARTG listed medical infrared and hyperthermia devices made in Germany.

The compartmentalisation within scientific disciplines and the extensive use of modern scientific methods in natural product research have led to a significant disconnect between preclinical research, human studies, and clinical practice.  This includes areas such as authentication, quality control, pharmacology, and manufacturing of natural products. Translational medicine may also include the interpretation and reappraisal of traditional herbal medicines and practices.

In this practical presentation Michael will provide practitioners with a method of translating preclinical and clinical research into clinical practice and provide specific examples that illustrates the importance of understanding translational medicine for natural products.

Key Take-Aways

• Understand the concept of translational medicine
• Learn how to apply translational medicine principles when reviewing published studies
• Learn how to apply this learning to your prescriptions

Amy has presented her research on Vitex agnus-castus at the NHAA Naturopathic Symposium in May 2023, and the AIMA (Australasian Integrative Medicine Association) conference December 2023.

Her future research endeavours include Naturopathic dermatology, healthy ageing, and plant sound therapy.

Amy has recently been accepted into the Master of Advanced Naturopathic Medicine at Southern Cross University and is currently running her Naturopathic clinic in the Inner West suburbs of Sydney.

Guests will have the opportunity to hear plants playing live during the presentation and are invited to participate in a 5-minute meditation at the end of the presentation curated and produced by sound artist Neal Sutherland. Join us for an immersive and sensory experience as the herbs we prescribe as Naturopaths speak to us in their language via the gift of sound.

Key Take-Aways

• All living things, including medicinal plants vibrate at a certain frequency, creating an energetic resonance
• Sound frequencies are as ancient as the Earth itself, and as sensory beings, we can use sound frequencies to help clear energetic blockages, re-harmonise our bodies, and bring a state of ease
• Plant medicine could theoretically enhance healing via sound wave therapy
• Are the sounds we hear the plants communicating to us through language?  Is this a way humans can collaborate with non-human organisms and beings to gain the perspective of the ‘other’.

Her work explores the role of holism, traditional knowledge and health promotion in contemporary health care settings. Hope also teaches at the National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine (Southern Cross University), and is co-chair of the World Naturopathic Federation Environmental Health Committee. Her current interests extend to health promotion, planetary health, and the importance of the healing relationship between humans and the natural environment.

The Contemporary Implementation of Traditional knowledge and Evidence in health (CITE) framework arose in response to calls from practitioners for greater recognition and integration of traditional knowledge. Developed with practitioners and other experts from traditional medicine and health care contexts, CITE explores what is important during the translation and use of traditional knowledge. The framework outlines guiding principles to bridge tradition with evidence-based health care, appropriate approaches to critical appraisal of traditional knowledge sources, and criteria to consider when applying traditional knowledge in contemporary settings.

CITE offers an accessible tool to enhance the impact of traditional knowledge from herbal and naturopathic medicine on practice, education, research and policy-development, ensuring health care remains relevant to our communities while maintaining the integrity of philosophy, ethics and traditional roots.

Key Take-Aways

• Traditional knowledge continues to play an integral role in the narrative and practice of herbal and naturopathic medicine as they evolve over time
• Traditional knowledge sources can be integrated with evidence-based practice in appropriate ways that uphold the integrity of both systems
• The CITE framework provides a novel tool to guide the evaluation and application of traditional knowledge in contemporary settings
• CITE was developed in collaboration with practitioners and other experts in traditional medicine and health settings, ensuring relevance and value to users of traditional knowledge.
• Conscious and critical engagement with traditional knowledge when translating to contemporary settings is important to ensure optimal outcomes in practice, education, research and policy

Phil is an Honorary Lecturer in Pharmacy at the University of Auckland, and a founding director of the industry body, Natural Health Products New Zealand. He is also a longstanding advocate for statutory regulation of natural health practitioners, and established and ran a herbal detoxification service for the Auckland Regional Alcohol and Drug Services, from 1993 to 1997. Phil served as President of the New Zealand Association of Medical Herbalists from 2018 to 2021.

Phil’s interests include native plants, medicinal ‘weeds’, the human connection with the natural world, and plant sustainability. In recent years he has been involved with trying to facilitate increased patient access to phytotherapy services, and establishing a stronger commercial medicinal plant growing sector, in Aotearoa New Zealand.

As is integral to all forms of Traditional Medicine, naturopaths and medical herbalists should ensure a long term, transparent and intergenerational approach to sustainability is incorporated within our clinical practice and usage of plant derived medicines.

In this presentation Phil will explore key challenges facing our ability to continue to access healthy medicinal plants, and provide some insights and perspectives from growers, wildcrafters and manufacturers. He will also discuss the situation for several at risk species, and attempt to provide some useful tools to enable each of us to help maintain a reliable and healthy supply chain in the future.

Key Take-Aways

• An enhanced understanding of the different ways in which the majority of the plants used in herbal medicine manufacturing are sourced
• An updated summary of the current status of several medicinal plants whose survival is deemed to be At Risk
• Information and confidence to use certain endemic introduced plants as substitutes for various potentially At Risk species imported from overseas
• Barriers and opportunities for greater cultivation of medicinal plants, within Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand
• The interconnectedness of multiple human activities and the natural world, and the need to conserve, replenish and sustain our environment as possible guardians, to protect our precious plants and safeguard our future access to them

Dawn Whitten continued …

Dawn is published in the peer-reviewed literature and has contributed to textbook chapters in the area of breastfeeding and infant health. She regularly presents at both National and International Conferences and Online Events.

Dawn is part of Goulds Natural Medicine, a busy apothecary, clinic and associated herb farm in Tasmania. She teaches two units on Evidence-based Complementary Medicine at the University of Tasmania. Alongside Dr Jason Hawrelak she is co-founder of the Microbiome Restoration Center, an organisation dedicated to providing unbiased continuing professional education to clinicians relating to gastrointestinal and microbiome health. She is the Early Life Health Lead at the Center.

Rachel Arthur continued …

With a particular interest and highly developed skill-set in diagnostics, Rachel is particularly known for developing this in others – from scratch or by rapidly growing their existing knowledge base. Rather than always reaching for expensive, pay out of pocket functional testing, Rachel opens up a new world for many, by maximising the insights and understanding practitioners can obtain from mainstream pathology results for each patient.

In this way, she endeavours to truly build the bridge we can all walk across that connects mainstream medicine and naturopathy, nutrition and integrative health.

While the original principle remains sound, when not balanced by the other underpinning tenets as described, is it possible that it has the potential to, at worst, cause harm, & at best, limit the full potential of naturopathic medicine? In our holistic workup are we giving adequate consideration to patients’ strengths, all the evidence in support of an innate biological resilience and, in turn, their vital force? And how might we as a profession move towards taking care to notice and elevate these principles to restore balance.

Key Take-Aways

• Consider how our contemporary practice method of seeking ‘the cause’ may at times perpetuate patient fears and a perception of ‘brokenness’ that negatively impacts wellbeing and health-related choices they may make.
• Examine the science of the added therapeutic value of ‘learned hopefulness’ or ‘cognitive hope’
• Outline common illustrations of patient biological resilience that we can bring to the front for both practitioner and patient
• Consideration for how our core Naturopathic principles, in particular ‘find the cause’, ‘first do no harm’ and ‘Vis medicatrix naturae‘, offer us an anchor point that then requires translation into a contemporary context
• Reflections on how we can strike the balance when identifying ’cause’ without setting the patient up to be focussed on their ‘brokenness’ with examples that occur commonly in practice

As testament to this, Rhiannon is routinely invited to present on the topic of collaborative patient care to medical specialists and naturopaths alike. After over 18 years clinical experience in the area of reproductive health, Rhiannon provides professional mentoring and education in both group and individual settings. Her education style is approachable yet thorough, attracting practitioners from all areas of functional medicine, as she assists them to best understand hormone, fertility and pregnancy cases through expertise in nuanced pathology interpretation and herbal and nutritional medicine prescription.

In this presentation Rhiannon discusses her approach to clinical herbal medicine prescription and education, bringing a nuanced understanding of specific indications, and sometimes more importantly contraindications, helping practitioners to achieve reliable results for their patients in the reproductive medicine space.

Key Take-Aways

• Understanding a patient’s individual hormone profile as opposed to their diagnosis is essential for effective use of herbal medicines
• The key role of understanding the mechanism of action and synergistic potential of herbal medicines
• The benefit of nuanced herbal medicine prescription for hormonal conditions
• The potential risks of inappropriate herbal prescriptions for some conditions

In 2018, she moved to Hobart to work with Dr Jason Hawrelak as a part of his Gastrointestinal Fellowship, where she spent four and a half years assisting clients with gastrointestinal and microbiome related conditions. Seeing first hand the impact of the microbiome on human health and disease, she grew increasingly passionate about protecting and supporting microbial health.

Jessica now understands that the health of the body is not separate to the health of the planet, and has branched out to create her own business, Nacelium, which combines clinical naturopathy, health education and environmental protection.

Microbes are key to the health of the planet. The ecological impact of the microbiota spans from water purification, nutrient recycling, and carbon sequestration to supporting plant and mammalian growth.

Biodiverse ecosystems offer a rich composition of beneficial microbes needed to assemble and support human microbial communities.

Alteration to the land and ocean’s environment by human development has led to a significant loss of the world’s plant and mammal biomass. Urban sprawl, monocrop farming, indoor living and deforestation all have significant consequences on environmental microbial communities.

The impact of urbanisation and city living has encouraged a lack of exposure to diverse beneficial microbes in the environment, resulting in poor health and immune outcomes within these populations.

Incorporating biodiverse green space in urban development for communities and increasing individual exposure to natural biodiverse environments are strategies to improve environmental-microbiome-health outcomes.

Supporting microbial health and diversity for human health and wellbeing is not separate to preserving biodiverse environments.

Key Take-Aways

• Individual and community health is impacted by he microbial worlds in which they live
• Why we need to support microbial diversity and richness, especially in urban environments
• Aerobiomes and their impacts on human health
• Where to start building exposure to biodiverse environments

He was also an Executive Director and Examiner with the NHAA, and was part of the original Board Member Advisory Committee.  Justin currently works as Chief Scientific Officer for the Australian Natural Therapeutics Groups, a vertically-integrated medicinal cannabis company, and prior to this, was a research fellow at NICM Health Research Institute at Western Sydney University.  Justin is currently finishing his doctoral studies investigating the safety, tolerability and effectiveness of medicinal cannabis for the pain and associated symptoms of endometriosis, and has published 2 book chapters and 24 journal articles on the topic of cannabis.

From the Tomes of ancient China, India, Greece and Persia, all the way through to cannabis being introduced to Western medicine by Irish physician William O’Shaughnessy in 1841, together we will examine this unique herbal medicine’s therapeutic actions and highlight the may challenges that still face it to this day (patient access, stigma, drug driving laws).  Lastly, we will cover off on some important clinical information for herbalists and naturopaths that may be seeing patients utilising medicinal cannabis in practice, including current regulations, the various access pathways and patient numbers, potential drug interactions and side-effects.

Key Take-Aways

• Cannabis has a long, diverse and rich history as a medicine
• Whilst legal in Australia since 2016, medicinal cannabis still faces several challenges including stigma, product costs, and outdated drug driving laws
• Medicinal cannabis can only be prescribed by medical practitioners in Australia
• Clinicians need to be cognisant of the potential side-effects and interactions of medicinal cannabis, both with pharmaceutical medicines and our own herbal medicines.