What is Naturopathic Medicine?

Natur­o­pathic doc­tors teach their patients to use diet, exer­cise, lifestyle change and cut­ting edge nat­ural ther­a­pies to enhance their bod­ies’ abil­ity to ward off and com­bat dis­ease.  Natur­o­pathic physi­cians are trained and licensed as pri­mary care doc­tors.  They treat a wide range of med­ical con­di­tions and pro­vide care for infants through adults.  They uti­lize many of the same diag­nos­tic tools as con­ven­tional med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers, includ­ing phys­i­cal exams, lab­o­ra­tory stud­ies, and imag­ing.  In addi­tion they use an array of alter­na­tive and func­tional med­i­cine stud­ies to diag­nose and treat the under­ly­ing cause of illness.

Natur­o­pathic physi­cians com­bine the wis­dom of nature with the rig­ors of mod­ern sci­ence. Steeped in tra­di­tional heal­ing meth­ods, prin­ci­ples and prac­tices, natur­o­pathic med­i­cine focuses on holis­tic, proac­tive pre­ven­tion and com­pre­hen­sive diag­no­sis and treat­ment. By using pro­to­cols that min­i­mize the risk of harm, natur­o­pathic physi­cians help facil­i­tate the body’s inher­ent abil­ity to restore and main­tain opti­mal health. It is the natur­o­pathic physician’s role to iden­tify and remove bar­ri­ers to good health by help­ing to cre­ate a heal­ing inter­nal and exter­nal environment.

Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Natur­o­pathic Physi­cians (AANP) AANP is the pro­fes­sional asso­ci­a­tion of licensed natur­o­pathic doc­tors in the U.S.  It is a use­ful site to learn more about natur­o­pathic med­i­cine and natur­o­pathic education.

Naturopathic Schooling & Training

A licensed natur­o­pathic doctor (N.D.) attends an accred­ited four year med­ical school and is edu­cated in all of the same basic and clin­i­cal sci­ences as an M.D. includ­ing: bio­chem­istry, anatomy, phys­i­ol­ogy, clin­i­cal, phys­i­cal and lab­o­ra­tory diag­no­sis, minor surgery, and phar­ma­col­ogy.  In addi­tion to this train­ing, natur­o­pathic doc­tors study holis­tic and non­toxic approaches to ther­apy with a strong empha­sis on dis­ease pre­ven­tion and opti­miz­ing well­ness. The natur­o­pathic physi­cian is required to com­plete exten­sive train­ing in clin­i­cal nutri­tion, home­opa­thy, botan­i­cal med­i­cine, phys­i­cal med­i­cine, and coun­sel­ing. 

A natur­o­pathic physi­cian takes rig­or­ous pro­fes­sional board exams (NPLEX) so that he or she may be licensed by a state or juris­dic­tion as a pri­mary care gen­eral prac­tice physician.  For information about the Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examination Board (NPLEX) and the North American Board of Naturopathic Examiners (NABNE), please see the Education page at www.naturopathic.org.

A natur­o­pathic physi­cian takes rig­or­ous pro­fes­sional board exams (NPLEX) so that he or she may be licensed by a state or juris­dic­tion as a pri­mary care gen­eral prac­tice physician.  For information about the Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examination Board (NPLEX) and the North American Board of Naturopathic Examiners (NABNE), please see the Education page at www.naturopathic.org. 

Bastyr Uni­ver­sity 
Bastyr Uni­ver­sity, where Dr. Bossio received her doc­tor­ate in Natur­o­pathic Med­i­cine, is one of the world’s lead­ing aca­d­e­mic cen­ters for advanc­ing knowl­edge about nat­ural med­i­cine.  It also is the largest uni­ver­sity for nat­ural health arts and sci­ences in the U.S.

National University of Nat­ural Med­i­cine (NUNM) 
NUNM, where Dr. Bossio com­pleted her res­i­dency in Natur­o­pathic Fam­ily Med­i­cine, is the old­est accred­ited natur­o­pathic med­ical col­lege in North America.

Naturopathic Philosophy

At the heart of Natur­o­pathic Med­i­cine are six basic prin­ci­ples:

First do no harm.  Natur­opa­thy uses safe and effec­tive nat­ural treat­ments to main­tain opti­mal health with min­i­mal poten­tial for side effects.

The heal­ing power of nature. Natur­o­pathic physi­cians believe the body has an innate intel­li­gence and abil­ity to heal and that it is their job to assist the body in doing so.

Iden­tify and treat the cause. Natur­o­pathic doc­tors under­stand that unless the root causes of ill­nesses are addressed their symp­toms will return. Rather than sim­ply treat­ing symp­toms, they seek to find and treat the under­ly­ing cause of dis­ease so the patient can have a last­ing cure.

Treat the whole per­son. Natur­opaths treat the phys­i­cal, men­tal, emo­tional, and spir­i­tual bod­ies as a whole, because an imbal­ance in one area affects the others.

Doc­tor as Teacher. Natur­o­pathic physi­cians empower their patients by edu­cat­ing and moti­vat­ing them to assume more per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity for their health.

Pre­ven­tion is the best cure. Natur­o­pathic physi­cians look to pre­vent dis­eases before they occur through pre­ven­ta­tive treat­ments, eval­u­a­tion of risk fac­tors, edu­ca­tion, and healthy dietary and life-style counseling.