Dr Sue Evans BA(LaT) DipEd(LaT) PhD(SCU) After studying herbal medicine at the School of Herbal Medicine in England, I joined the National Institute of Medical Herbalists (UK) in 1982, and subsequently, returned home to Melbourne. After some years working in a home practice, I joined the Whole Health Clinic in Fairfield, which was the first multi-disciplinary clinic in Melbourne where practitioners of different disciplines - naturopaths and psychologists, chiropractors and general practitioners, worked cooperatively to enhance patients' health. I also taught herbal medicine at the Southern School of Natural Medicine between 1985-1995. In 1996 I moved to the Northern Rivers to take up a position as foundation herbal medicine lecturer to the Bachelor of Naturopathy program at SCU. My teaching focuses on the clinical use of medicinal herbs, and the historical and philosophical foundations that underpin traditional herbal practice in Australia. My particular interests in teaching and research include the role of traditional herbal knowledge and philosophy in contemporary herbal practice; the history of Western herbal medicine (particularly in Australia);and the interaction between traditional medical systems and biomedicine, in Australia, Asia and Latin America. My doctoral thesis, Challenge tension and possibility: an exploration of contemporary Western herbal medicine in Australia, concerns the difficulties faced by Australian herbalists in their attempts to maintain authority over the knowledge base of their craft, while at the same time engaging with biomedicine and the broader Australian healthcare system.
Journal articles
Action learning enhances professional development of research supervisors: an Australian health science exemplar (with Kierrynn Davis, Sonya Brownie, Frances Mary Doran, Marie Hutchinson, Beth Mozolic-Staunton, Steve Provost, and Rosalie van Aken), Nursing and Health Sciences (2012)
The worldwide academic workforce is ageing. At the same time, health and human services workforces...
Exploring the practice and use of Western herbal medicine: perspectives from the social science literature (with Nina Nissen), Journal of Herbal Medicine (2012)
The literature which concerns Western herbal medicine (WHM) overwhelmingly provides clinical and pharmacological perspectives on...
Herbal wisdom: memory and migration (with Catharine Avila and Annette Kay Morgan), Coolabah (2011)
Within contemporary Western herbal medicine, traditional knowledge and modern science are combined to provide a...
Joseph Banks and the continuing influence of European colonisation on Australian herbal practice, Australian Journal of Medical Herbalism (2009)
The practice of Western herbal medicine in Australia is characterised by a dependence on botanically...
Changing the knowledge base of Western herbal medicine, Science and Medicine (2008)
The project of modernising Western herbal medicine in order to allow it to be accepted...
Letters to the editor
Theses
Challenge, tension and possibility: an exploration into contemporary western herbal medicine in Australia, PhD thesis, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW (2009)
This thesis is about the contemporary challenges facing herbal medicine. Specifically it concerns the difficulties...
Conference publications
Power and knowledge in herbal medicine, Alternative and Complementary Health Researchers Network Conference (2007)
Holism and herbal practice: Hearts, a case-based approach, American Herbalists Guild Conference (2006)
History of herbal medicine in Australia, Royal Australian College of Physicians: History of Medicine Lectures (2004)
Natural and complementary medicine: using different tools, thinking in different ways, Institute of Australasian Psychiatrists Conference (2004)
Reports, presentations etc.