a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  5053 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Life in the Quiet Zone
It's very hard to speak for "all naturopathic doctors" because it's hard to speak for "all doctors." I can point you here:

http://naturopathic.org/

...but know that, as with most industry trade groups, there's dissent about pretty much every part of it.

I can also tell you that my wife's training regimen, as do all licensed naturopathic doctors' training regimens, included organic chemistry, gross anatomy, pharmacy, pathology, immunology, genetics, etc.

As far as prescribing, my wife's ability to prescribe in California is heavily curtailed compared to Washington, where she took her boards. In Washington, the argument was made that if a naturopathic doctor intended to take a patient off prescription medication, they needed to prove their proficiency with pharmaceutical treatment well enough to qualify to put a patient on prescription medication. In Washington, if you can buy it at a pharmacy she can prescribe it. In California, it's pretty much vitamins and herbs.





thenewgreen  ·  5053 days ago  ·  link  ·  
I guess I was asking from the standpoint of your and your wives perspective not thinking that in any way it would constitute "all naturopathic doctors", -poor phrasing on my part. Washington's reasoning, pertaining to the ability to prescribe, seems sound to me.

I suppose there are many paths to becoming an effective healer/consultant/doctor whatever you'd like to call it. For my healthcare, I would prefer council with an MD that has had some serious training in naturopathy and would take the most natural, non-invasive and proactive path to health possible. Thanks for the link, I will begin my studies tonight.

Be well.

kleinbl00  ·  5053 days ago  ·  link  ·  
My wife just put cortisone on a rash and is busy arguing with Lab Corps about lost samples. Her dad has a Ph. D in organic chemistry. She worked for the health insurance industry for 5 years as a database architect. My mother has a Ph.D in microbiology. We kinda get the whole "science" thing.

The business partner she just left, however, didn't believe in germ theory. Granted, she was a midwife and acupuncturist, not a naturopathic doctor.

But it takes all kinds.

My personal philosophy is that the US does things exactly wrong. The corner doctor should be the guy who tells you what you can do to fix your problems cheaply. He ought to know your health history pretty well. You ought to be on a first-name basis with him, and he ought to be well-paid by the government to keep all small health maladies small and to refer more vexing maladies to specialists. If my wife could have gotten an MD in "old country doctor" she would have.

I dated a psychoanalyst's daughter for 4 years. He worked in public health. And every day of a 2-week rotation, he'd go to a new clinic, spend 7 minutes meeting with patients, and then 4 minutes consulting with the nurses there to find out what medication the nurses thought he should put those patients on.

That's a clinic a day, 40 patients a day, every day for two weeks.

Rinse, repeat.

Shit ain't right.

thenewgreen  ·  5052 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Amen. I agree, it's definitely an inefficient mess. The process of medical education is severly flawed too. -In my opinion it's actually way too comprehensive and is backward in it's progression. Why would you make the clinical aspect the last part of the education process? Unfortunately, a lot of "book smart" people end up in medicine only to later find out they have zero aptitude for the actual practice of medicine. -Makes no sense.