I assure you that naturopaths treat acute conditions

When I had an interview at SCNM the people that interviewed me were very adamant about the power of naturopathic medicine to treat acute conditions. For example, I observed their clinic treating a case of osteomyelitis (bone infection) with clay poultices. Remember that naturopaths can prescribe most drugs in several states, especially Oregon. Naturopaths are doing a number of things with injections, IVs, chelation, ozone therapy, ect. that could be classified as invasive. Naturopaths also do minor surgery. I really don't think their clinic education is adequate to handle what can go wrong by using these modalities. If naturopaths want to become mini-MDs then they need to step up their education and residency requirements and get integrated into a hospital environment. Even the least-trained MDs do at least 3 years of residency after their 4-year degree, and it is becomming more and more common for people to do 5 years of residency.

Naturopaths also face a huge hurdle being integrated into hospital environments because most hospitals don't want them. Most of their treatments have no evidence behind them. Most of the evidence-based techniques that naturopaths do happen to use are already going to be stripped out and exported into mainstream medicine minus all the definitions of vital force, chi, life force, innate, ect.

I think there is a place for hebs, homeopathy, etc but not in the current model the naturopaths are using. If the NDs want to be like MDs (NMD) then they need to step up their game and make their education requirements more like a real medical school. Otherwise, they are learning all these things in school and never getting a proper residency in which to apply them all. Many of my friends who are licensed NMDs are completely inept in their clinical training. I have seen this same sentiment echoed by some of the naturopaths on this board.

I think the best solution would be to disband naturopath schools altogether and place their programs into a standard medical school. Naturopaths can then subspecialize into their field after they are on the same playing field as MDs. They would also be much better equiped to perform research, being integrated into medical clinics, work with other doctors, ect. They would also be able to be compensated more fairly and be linked into insurance panels, medicare, ect. I think chiropractors and acupuncturists should also get linked into that same model.

Would it ever happen? Probably not-- but that is how it is happening right now in Europe. In Europe many of the people that are using homeopathy, herbs, ect are the MDs.

Naturopathic school is not hard to get into, just about anyone can get accepted if they finish the pre-quisitives. I think we need to be more selective of quality of naturopaths, but that is completely impossible to do because naturopathic schools rely entirely on their student number to pay their bills. Many of the competitive applications get funneled into the programs that compensate better. Naturopaths get the leftovers.

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