5 Fact Checkers about Naturopathic Medicine
#1: Patients must choose between naturopathic and conventional medical care.
Answer:
Absolutely not. In fact, the two work best together. Naturopathic Doctors can and do work along side the diagnostic procedures, pharmaceutical and surgical interventions of medical doctors to support your whole health picture and achieve better results. We are not competing with medical doctors! While we might view a case and approach it differently, we are not anti-conventional medicine and we will use it too. The therapeutic order naturopathic medicine follows in our treatment approach has high force, invasive options such as surgery, radiation, and chemo as the last option at #7. #6 is suppression of symptoms with pharmaceutical intervention. But previous to those two we have 5 places to start when addressing health concerns!
Conclusion:
To optimize your health, employ an integrative approach with a solid team of different healthcare professionals around you!
#2: Naturopathic Medicine is too expensive.
Answer:
While you may have to pay out of pocket if you don’t have extended health care insurance, it may not be as expensive as you think…. Let me explain.
It’s like this, if you owned your own business and you didn’t quite understand accounting, but you tried to do it all yourself anyway to ‘save money’, you would probably end up losing money in the long run and getting into a bit more trouble than you could have been in if you had just spent the money and done it right in the first place with the help of a chartered professional accountant. In the same way, spending a little know can save a lot later when it comes to your health. And what could be more important than investing in that?!
Conclusion:
Get results, don’t waste your money.
#3: Anyone can call themselves a Naturopathic Doctor.
Answer:
Naturopathic medicine is a government regulated profession with the term Naturopathic Doctor or Naturopathic Physician being reserved and protected for use only by those who have completed the following:
-a minimum of 3 years of pre-medical post-grad studies
-followed by 4 years of training at an accredited naturopathic medical college (Here they are rigorously tested in biomedical & clinical science, clinical disciplines, and naturopathic therapies. In addition, they are supervised in 1200 clinical hours while also completing preceptorship hours with licensed practicing NDs.)
-Finally, they must pass two standardized licensing board exams, all provincial regulatory requirements, and meet yearly continuing education requirements and standards of practice.
Conclusion:
In the same way that anyone cannot call themselves a dentist, RN, or MD, anyone cannot call themselves an ND.
#4: A “naturopath” and a “homeopath” are the same thing.
Answer:
These are two different types of practitioners – neither superior, just different. A Homeopathic Practitioner trains and then practices in the field of homeopathy. A Naturopathic Physician trains and then practices in the fields of physical medicine, botanical medicine, nutritional medicine, Chinese medicine, homeopathic medicine, counseling, and is permitted to run various labs and prescribe or inject various medicines.
Conclusion:
While both are alternative healthcare practitioners, homeopaths practice homeopathy and naturopathic doctors practice general primary health care.
#5: Naturopathic Medicine is not scientific or evidence based medicine.
Answer:
After spending an immense amount of time, energy, money, blood, sweat, tears, & sacrifice to complete my degree, this is a question that I can get passionate about when I hear some uninformed strong opinions. But without involving any emotion, here are just the facts.
Answer:
Absolutely not. In fact, the two work best together. Naturopathic Doctors can and do work along side the diagnostic procedures, pharmaceutical and surgical interventions of medical doctors to support your whole health picture and achieve better results. We are not competing with medical doctors! While we might view a case and approach it differently, we are not anti-conventional medicine and we will use it too. The therapeutic order naturopathic medicine follows in our treatment approach has high force, invasive options such as surgery, radiation, and chemo as the last option at #7. #6 is suppression of symptoms with pharmaceutical intervention. But previous to those two we have 5 places to start when addressing health concerns!
Conclusion:
To optimize your health, employ an integrative approach with a solid team of different healthcare professionals around you!
#2: Naturopathic Medicine is too expensive.
Answer:
While you may have to pay out of pocket if you don’t have extended health care insurance, it may not be as expensive as you think…. Let me explain.
- You will actually be saving money by not wasting it on grocery store supplements that you are not seeing results from. NDs are highly trained health care professionals who can give specific, individualized, high quality therapies that span the spectrum of modalities from physical medicine to foods you already have in your home. We are trained to know what works together and what doesn’t, when to take things, how to take them and at what dosages for the best therapeutic benefit. Remember that just because something is natural, doesn’t mean that it is safe.
- Health promotion and preventative medicine is cheaper than disease treatment. We don’t often think about the devastating sequelae and huge costs that something as common as type 2 diabetes can render. Let your ND detect the earliest signs and symptoms of diseases like this one and reverse their prognosis!
- Instead of addressing just one issue per visit, we spend a lot of time getting to know you (60min for the first visit!) – this helps us get to the root of your health concern more quickly to get you on the road to recovery faster and with fewer hang ups along the way.
It’s like this, if you owned your own business and you didn’t quite understand accounting, but you tried to do it all yourself anyway to ‘save money’, you would probably end up losing money in the long run and getting into a bit more trouble than you could have been in if you had just spent the money and done it right in the first place with the help of a chartered professional accountant. In the same way, spending a little know can save a lot later when it comes to your health. And what could be more important than investing in that?!
Conclusion:
Get results, don’t waste your money.
#3: Anyone can call themselves a Naturopathic Doctor.
Answer:
Naturopathic medicine is a government regulated profession with the term Naturopathic Doctor or Naturopathic Physician being reserved and protected for use only by those who have completed the following:
-a minimum of 3 years of pre-medical post-grad studies
-followed by 4 years of training at an accredited naturopathic medical college (Here they are rigorously tested in biomedical & clinical science, clinical disciplines, and naturopathic therapies. In addition, they are supervised in 1200 clinical hours while also completing preceptorship hours with licensed practicing NDs.)
-Finally, they must pass two standardized licensing board exams, all provincial regulatory requirements, and meet yearly continuing education requirements and standards of practice.
Conclusion:
In the same way that anyone cannot call themselves a dentist, RN, or MD, anyone cannot call themselves an ND.
#4: A “naturopath” and a “homeopath” are the same thing.
Answer:
These are two different types of practitioners – neither superior, just different. A Homeopathic Practitioner trains and then practices in the field of homeopathy. A Naturopathic Physician trains and then practices in the fields of physical medicine, botanical medicine, nutritional medicine, Chinese medicine, homeopathic medicine, counseling, and is permitted to run various labs and prescribe or inject various medicines.
Conclusion:
While both are alternative healthcare practitioners, homeopaths practice homeopathy and naturopathic doctors practice general primary health care.
#5: Naturopathic Medicine is not scientific or evidence based medicine.
Answer:
After spending an immense amount of time, energy, money, blood, sweat, tears, & sacrifice to complete my degree, this is a question that I can get passionate about when I hear some uninformed strong opinions. But without involving any emotion, here are just the facts.
- Definitions to start with: The definition of Evidence Based Medicine: best research + clinical judgment + patient values & preferences. Naturopathic doctors make treatment decisions using the best research we have available combined with our clinical experience and judgment on a case-to-case basis while informing and involving our patients in the process.
- Let’s get the basics straight: When you come to see me, I won’t use a crystal ball to determine your state of health. My assessment tools will include a look at your health history, a physical exam using standard medical equipment, in house laboratory testing such as urinalysis, or laboratory testing requisitions such as general blood chemistry.
- A note about the research: Quite simply, there is in fact research & science involved in all the natural modalities, albeit, not as much a there is behind pharmaceutical interventions, but it is continually growing. (Often it is just not well known.) But why is the body of research smaller?
- There is not a lot of money in it and scientific studies require a huge amount of funding. If someone can’t make money off of a research finding, there isn’t a lot of motivation to spend the millions on researching an answer.
- A big difference between studying pharmaceuticals and studying natural substances is in the prescribing. Pharmaceutical interventions are prescribed for specific pathologies. Natural substances are often used to restore health before pathologies develop. A diverse amount of combinations of therapies that will work synergistically together on an individualistic basis are available. This means that one size does not fit all and it makes the development of research hypotheses difficult. Even so, a naturopathic doctor will be able to use the studies that show the response of a therapy within the body in combination with the knowledge of the inner workings of the body and determine target mechanisms of action they want to address in their treatment approach.
Did you know that synthetic drugs often come about from the modification of a plant chemical compounds? For example, salix alba (white willow) contains salicin, which was known for thousand of years to help ease pain and inflammation. Just over 100 years ago, it was modified (and monetized) into one of the first synthetic drugs to come into common usage – aspirin.
4. The truth about naturopathic medical training:
- We have a governing regulating body called the College of Naturopathic Physicians of British Columbia (CNPBC) who's mandate is to protect the public interest by ensuring that naturopathic physicians in BC practice safely, ethically, and competently. Our standards, guidelines, and scope of practice are available for public viewing at cnpbc.bc.ca.
- We are trained as primary care physicians and we will refer out according to how emergent a presenting health concern is. For example, if someone comes in with a suspicious “mole”, we are not going to send them home with a herbal ointment, we are going to refer them out (or some might excise it). In fact, if we don't handle a case properly we are liable and held accountable!
- We are trained to follow conventional medical guidelines.
- We are trained to follow and critically analyze current research.
- We are trained in emergency medicine and must maintain valid health care provider first aid as well as advanced cardiovascular life support certifications.
- We are trained to follow the Therapeutic Order and the Principles of Naturopathic Medicine. Where we can we will most often utilize the first 5 steps of the therapeutic order, but when necessary we will also recommend the last two, namely, the use of pharmacologic substances to halt progressive pathologies and suppression or surgical removal of a pathology.
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Therapeutic Order
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Principles of Naturopathic Medicine
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Below is a look at the educational requirements of ND and MD students. While the similarities and differences are somewhat blurry to see in this layout due to different class names, it is generally easy to identify the similarly strong science background between the two institutions.
Often the thought is that conventional medical doctors don’t agree with natural therapies because they are not scientific. What is actually the case is that medical doctors are mandated not to prescribe or give advice about anything of which they do not know the associated research. Since medical doctors are trained in pharmacognosy and not natural therapies, they are unversed in the research unless they take the time to look into it on their own. For example, they may know that there are around 3 safe Category A drugs for use during pregnancy, but they may not know that there are around 13 safe Category A botanicals for use during pregnancy. Therefore, it would be unethical for them to advise a herbal remedy over a pharmaceutical because they don’t know the research backing the herbs. This is where a Naturopathic Doctor who has the information can advise a patient. Collaboration and communication between health care professionals is an essential part of a holistic health care plan.
Conclusion:
Naturopathic Doctors are trained as primary care physicians and aim to practice evidence based medicine and to uphold the standards of care within our profession. We are well versed in science and scientific study and we follow conventional guidelines and research.
More important than anything else though, we simply want to see our patients get better! We are proud to be held to such high standards and we will continue to learn and continue to get better. In the meantime, we are here to serve.
Conclusion:
Naturopathic Doctors are trained as primary care physicians and aim to practice evidence based medicine and to uphold the standards of care within our profession. We are well versed in science and scientific study and we follow conventional guidelines and research.
More important than anything else though, we simply want to see our patients get better! We are proud to be held to such high standards and we will continue to learn and continue to get better. In the meantime, we are here to serve.
