How accepted is Naturopathic medicine?

Question

A friend of mine just told me that he is going to grad school to study naturopathic medicine. How well accepted is it?

Answer 1

If he accepts it then I guess its pretty acceptable.

Answer 2

It really depends on the area (ie. in arizona naturopaths have as much power as MDs, while in certain states they aren't even allowed to be liscened to practice).  By the same token, some crowds hate the practice others like it.

I personally think the real naturopath schools (there are only 6 of them) are pretty good, and give you a high quality medical education.  I originally wanted to become a doctore but abandoned the path after I saw all the problems in modern medicine (and the way the schools are run), but naturopathy seemed really cool to me, and I'm considering going to one.

Outside of the US, naturopathy tends to be more accepted, and many of the practices they do here are considered obvious and self evident.

Answer 3

Naturopathic medicine is very well accepted by educated people who are conscious of the connection between their lifestyle and food choices and their health.

The uneducated person who thinks that the doctor is God and that they have no power over their own condition will consider naturopathic medicine to be quackery. But if you do the research you will see that more and more physicians are working in tandem with naturopaths or are taking additional courses of study to include naturotathic madicines.

Most physicians actually know very little about nutrition and the body mind, spirit connection, not because it is invalid but because they study pharmeceuticals and surgery. That is what they know how to use. The wise physicians realize that there is much they do not know about health and seek either to learn more or encourage their patients to seek complimentary care.

Some are threatened by what they don't know and deem it invalid due to their own lack of knowledge.

When your friend completes school, he will need to target the patients who are educated and aware that they have power to make choices about their health. If he targets these people, he will be fine.

Answer 4

Not very. Its improving but has a long way to go.

For some reason allopaths feel that they have exclusive rights to healthcare and do whatever they can to ensure other modalities don't grow by dicrediting the studies done as unscientific even though allopathic studies and testing is sponsered by the people who make the drugs.

This would end if a truely independent body was set up to test all healthcare products which all manufacturers had to pay into. Naturopathy and other therapies would then get the independent testing that everyone wants.

Answer 5

Not much on the mainsream, but like Traditional Chinese Medicine TCM, it has a devout following. They look at cause and effect differently and react in a different way than "traditional" medicine. I personally find it fascinating, but others dismiss it as "heresy".

Answer 6

It really does depend on the country you live in. Some are close and some very open to naturopathy. The worst are probably Australia and the USA. The best is Germany, Sweden and England.