The website that Zac referred to was what convinced me to seek ND care. However, I now know it\'s pretty much baloney. Both NDs I went to completed 4 yrs at Bastyr. MDs train for a considerably longer time. While I know it\'s comparing apples to oranges (two different medical models), it\'s the NDs who claim they can practice as primary care physicians. They simply can\'t.

But there are other issues I have with them. In one state, the president of the ND professional association lives in another part of the country. He doesn\'t know who is working in the state whose assoc. he presides over. In an unlicensed state, NDs can\'t even send you for a blood test, though mine did due to \"an arrangement\" they had with a lab. In essence, the results of the lab work dictated the treatment, which was a supplement for each symptom, the very kind of western medicine that NDs preach against.

Other NDs in my state practice using a variety of pseudoscientific methods, using the claim that the science is there, just no one bothers to read it. Well, then, present it, because as one who simply trusted in an ND thinking they had all the training listed, I learned the hard way that every little thing has to be researched - credentials, supplements, theories. One ND is so involved in est training that he gave up critical thinking and uses est training in his practice. This is something else I\'ve encountered in researching the advertising of NDs - their use of New Age ideas as sound medicine, usually as part of a mixed bag of therapies based on a New Age diagnosis.

The NDs in my state try to gain credibility by saying that any day now, the state will grant them licensure. One very reputable ND spent long hours lobbying for licensing, however, when I called the state, they laughed saying that they would never go through all the legal mumbo-jumbo to license a handful of NDs, some of whom do not have a 4-year degree.

And then we have the mail order NDs claiming to have the 4-year college degree. Why lie? Because they want the credibility of doing the work without doing the work.

I was so into naturopathy, wanted it to work, but I have to wonder where it fits in now. There is so much in the mainstream media about nutrition that I heard coming from my NDs mouth that it doesn\'t pay to pay the exhorbitant fees, which are not covered by insurance.