About Us

Vladimir Shmitsman

As a high school student I always wanted to be in the medical field, to wear white doctor’s coat and to help people who were suffering from illnesses.

dr.pngAfter graduating high school I went to the medical college to become a nurse, which took about two years of my life and introduced me with basic medical knowledge about the physiology of human body. Soon after, I had to go and serve in the Soviet Army for another two years during which I took care of some ill and wounded soldiers, and basically was assisting the doctor stationed with our unit. During my years in the army I became ever more determined to become a medical doctor.

After I was done with the duty for the regime that I had never believed in, I decided to pursue my career as a medical doctor and enrolled in the Yekaterinburg State University. During the next seven years which did not include the clinical internship I studied all the required subjects such as anatomy, pharmacology, pathology and etc. It seemed like all the answers were there, that the modern science had all the cures which could be applied without flaws.

After completing my clinical internship and government examinations I became licensed in 1985 and got a full time position in the state hospital. During next several years of my career I slowly began noticing that the keys for all the illnesses were not there as I thought previously. I did not have all the answers when the patient was asking me: “doctor, I have finished all my medications but now I have this problem”, or “doctor the surgery was done just three years ago but I am feeling much worse”, and so on.

Finally, I remembered the ways of my grandmother who was always taking care of me while I was young. My parents had numerous friends in the city’s medical community and whenever I got sick they brought some sort of cough syrup, or some ointments, pills, etc. My grandmother always told me: “boy, don’t take this garbage, you will get ill more and more”. To my surprise, as I remember now, I did get sick more frequently than any of my friends in kindergarten or elementary school.

My grandmother was a people’s healer, she did not have any formal education but so many people were coming to see her almost every day from all over the city. As a child I was always in the forest with my grandmother who would collect bark from certain trees, roots and leaves of certain plants, and some wild life produce like berries and flowers. Upon bringing them home she would dry some, others she would prepare fresh with additions of alcohol and water.

Some roots would be ground to fine powder and added into people’s drinks, etc. “Boy, these plants and trees carry the energy of life and healing in them, while all the pills they give you carry nothing except more problems”, she used to say all the time. Some people called it witchcraft but almost everyone from her clientele had many good things to say about her and her medicine. Now, being in a hospital environment I realized that I should have learned all her secrets then, but unfortunately she was no longer in this world. This is the time when I decided to change my ways of how I look at healing and at medicine altogether.

I began looking through her books and diaries written by her, I wanted to throw these away when I was in the nursing college, I honestly thought that she was a lost person. Little did anyone know that she lived until 92 years of age without taking any pharmaceutical drugs, surgeries, and other conventional treatments. During her 90th birthday she was still walking and washing dishes, this is very hard to see in our generations and the generations of our children.

Now, I was starting to think that the ancestors had more clues about natural body healing than the modern conventional medicine. I was very fortunate to participate in the acupuncture and Chinese medicine course offered at Saint Petersburg for medical doctors, from which I had graduated as an acupuncturist. Next, I decided to go to Shanghai as there was a course which Russian doctors were allowed to attend in order to get more familiar with Chinese Traditional Medicine.

During my time in China I studied acupuncture, Chinese herbology, acupressure, and Tai Chi. At that point I could see that there is something else beyond the allopathic pills which I was prescribing to my patients before. Upon my return to Russia I build my own practice which was a first of such kind in the city. I concentrated on Chinese traditional healing methods and Homeopathy which I was constantly learning about through books and a two year course offered at my hospital.

Soon after, I had closed my busy practice and went to East Germany where I took a lengthy homeopathic course which was a first legal course offered at that time in Berlin. I returned to Yekaterinburg and reopened my practice, to my surprise numerous people were already waiting to get in for an appointment and I did not have to advertise, many of these familiar faces I saw in the state hospital before, during my naïve years. It was clear to me at the time that I was on the right track and I continued to study other natural healing methods such as Reflexology, Nutrition, Iridology, and Reiki.

My practice in Yekaterinburg was getting busier and busier as rumors were spreading fast among the people, thus forcing me to hire two full time associates and a receptionist. At this point I was unable to keep up with the demand placed on my shoulders and was working anywhere between 12 to 14 hours a day. At that time I started to consider an option of immigrating either to Canada or Australia due to various signs of increased political tensions in Russia and for my sons, who I really did not want to see in the Russian army. Finally, my dream came true and I was accepted by the Canadian immigration, I took this privileged opportunity and came to the Vancouver area in the mid 1990.

My reply of acceptance from the Australian immigration came to my relatives in Russia just several months later; however, at this point I fell in love with beautiful Vancouver and did not want to go anywhere else. My career in Vancouver did not develop instantly as I had to put myself through an intense course of English language. To my understanding it was impossible to open any kind of business without being fluent in English as well as being familiar with the Canadian culture and people. It took me about two years of ESL (English as a second language courses) to get to an acceptable level of communication techniques. During that time I was working part time from home and provided homeopathic treatments to some of my first patients introduced to me by neighbors or friends.

At first I had opened a small office in a commercial building in Vancouver where I was seeing patients and performing reception duties for myself. Once I got my license as an acupuncturist my scope of practice increased to homeopathy, acupuncture, iridology, nutrition, reiki, and herbology. My relocation to a much larger office and hiring a receptionist soon became inevitable as I understood that the demand for my services was sharply on the rise. My advertising campaign was almost non-existent as rumors traveled from mouth to mouth and I was faced with working 12 to 14 hours a day just like I did back in the home country.

I have always had a dream of combining my homeopathic clinic with a laboratory for several reasons:

  • Ability to perform controlled clinical trials on cite with continual observation of particular patient’s conditions and symptoms
  • Ability to individually select and/or manufacture specific medicine according to each patient’s physiologic, pathologic, and psychologic requirements.
  • Ability to provide the patient with an immediate homeopathic formula manufactured during his/her appointment

Relocation to the new, much larger office took place about three years later, a homeopathic laboratory was created to provide best quality homeopathic remedies right here on cite in order to accommodate the needs of my patients. Currently there are five full and one part time employee in my clinic. My interest in further study of homeopathy had grown even more as I understood that this was the only correct healing approach for me, and this is my destiny in life.