OUR STORY
Two worlds, one question
Why are herbal medicine and conventional medicine treated as opposites — when the evidence suggests they work best together?
"I have spent my entire career standing in the gap between two worlds that should never have been separated. This book is my attempt to explain why they were — and what we lose because of it.
Dr. Dílis Clare, MB BCh, BSc (Herbal Medicine)
WHERE IT BEGAN
A doctor who asked the question few were asking
When Dr. Dílis Clare qualified as a medical doctor, she did what most newly qualified doctors do: she trusted the system. Pharmaceutical medicine was modern, rigorous, evidence-based. Natural medicine was folk tradition — interesting, perhaps, but not something a serious clinician took too seriously.
But the more she practised, the more she noticed the gaps. Patients who didn't respond to conventional treatment. Conditions where the side effects of medication outweighed the benefits. People who felt, instinctively, that there was something missing from the care they were receiving.
So she went back to study. She completed a second degree — a BSc in Herbal Medicine — and began the painstaking work of integrating both traditions in her clinical practice. Not in theory. In real consultations, with real patients, in Galway.
That was 1999. She has been practising collaborative medicine ever since.
THE QUESTION BEHIND THE BOOK
Why was natural medicine pushed out - and who decided?
The more Dr. Clare read, the more a troubling question took shape. The standard account of medical history goes like this: natural and folk medicine traditions were replaced by pharmaceutical medicine because pharmaceutical medicine worked better. Science won.
But was that actually true? When she and co-author Tim Morrissey began digging into the historical record, a more complicated picture emerged. One involving professional politics, commercial interests, and ideology — not simply evidence.
Natural healing traditions weren't abandoned because they failed patients. In many cases, they were marginalised because they threatened the authority and income of those who stood to benefit from a single, dominant medical model.
That discovery became the spine of Uprooted Medicine.
THE AUTHORS
Qualifications, experience, and a shared conviction
Dr. Dílis Clare
MB, BCh · BSc Herbal Medicine
Honorary Clinical Fellow, UCG
Dr. Clare trained at UCD Medical School and Middlesex University, and has been practising collaborative medicine in Galway since 1999. She founded Dr. Clare Clinic and Apothecary and serves as an Honorary Clinical Fellow at University College Galway Medical School. Dr. Clare has served on the accreditation board of the National Institute of Herbal Medicine (NIMH, UK). Her current commitments include teaching integrated clinical skills for the NIMH-accredited Heartwood Professional Herbal Medicine course.
She is one of the very few practitioners in Ireland — or anywhere — to hold full qualifications in both conventional medicine and herbal medicine, and to have built an active clinical practice integrating both.
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Tim Morrissey
PhD (Geology, UCD) · Researcher & Editor
Tim Morrissey holds a PhD in Geology from University College Dublin and has worked across banking, music, energy research, and academic editing. His interest in herbal medicine developed through his wife's herbal medicine practice over the past two decades.
He brings rigorous academic discipline to the historical and scientific research underpinning every claim in the book — ensuring the argument is as watertight as it is readable.
THE JOURNEY TO THIS BOOK
Twenty-five years in the making
1990s
Medical training at UCD
Dr. Clare qualifies as a medical doctor at University College Dublin, entering a profession rooted entirely in pharmaceutical medicine.
Late 1990s
A second degree — and a different question
Sensing the gaps in conventional care, Dr. Clare completes a BSc in Herbal Medicine at Middlesex University — one of the few doctors to hold qualifications in both traditions.
1999
Collaborative practice begins
Dr. Clare begins integrating both approaches in active clinical practice in Galway — combining the tools of conventional medicine with proven nature-based healing.
2000s–2010s
Founding Dr. Clare Clinic & Apothecary
She establishes Dr. Clare Apothecary in Galway, bringing together her two worlds under one roof and serving patients who had not found answers elsewhere.
2016
The research begins in earnest
Dr. Clare and Tim Morrissey begin the deep historical research that will become Uprooted Medicine — tracing how and why natural medicine was pushed out of the mainstream.
November 2025
Uprooted Medicine is published
The book is released, bringing together 25 years of clinical experience and years of rigorous historical research into a single, readable account.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Medicine works best when it draws on everything that works
We are not anti-medicine. We are pro-patient. Pharmaceutical medicine has produced genuine miracles and we are grateful for every one of them. But it is not the whole story — and pretending it is does real harm to real people.
Uprooted Medicine is an argument for a healthcare system that evaluates every tool on its merits, rather than its origin. That is what Dr. Clare has practised for 25 years. This book explains why it matters.