What is Naturopathic Medicine?

Naturopathic Doctors who are licensed in the state of New Hampshire are trained in four-year medical colleges. This education begins only after graduation from a four-year college or university. The education during the first two years at a four-year naturopathic school is very similar to a traditional medical school. In addition to learning such basic medical sciences as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology, immunology, histology, neuroscience and genetics, naturopaths also learn the naturopathic therapies. These include: clinical nutrition (that is nutrition as both a healing therapy and applied biochemistry), botanical medicine (nutritive and therapeutic herbs), homeopathy, and Chinese medicine theory as well as environmental medicine, physical medicine and hydrotherapy. Naturopaths are trained both in the classroom and in a variety of clinical settings.

Throughout the naturopathic medical curriculum and professional careers naturopaths are required to take board exams to ensure that both the training and skills come up to the standards required across North America for the naturopathic profession. Just as for medical doctors and osteopaths, naturopathic physicians are required to take Continuing Education courses periodically in order to stay at peak competence.

In New Hampshire, naturopathic physicians are licensed to diagnose and treat disease with any combination of the therapies listed above. Thirteen other states, including the recent additions of California and Idaho, also license naturopathic physicians. So does every province in Canada. A licensed naturopath receives more classroom hours in medical sciences and natural therapies and their application to patients than any other type of physician. By the time naturopathic students get to the clinical training part of their curriculum, they know how to apply herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, nutrients, physical manipulation, temperature modulation and detoxification for various disease conditions. They then still have two more years of clinical training to apply and refine those skills.

In New Hampshire, naturopathic medicine is still not covered by most medical insurance. There are exceptions. However, as many people have happily discovered, the out-of-pocket costs to a naturopath's patients are often much less than the out-of-pocket costs (that is deductibles and uncovered services and products) for fully insured people who go to conventional physicians and who need pharmaceuticals and/or hospital care. That is, a naturopath's tools, which are basically materials found in nature, plant materials mostly, are so much less expensive than patented prescription drugs that you end up paying less even without insurance. These savings are magnified as time goes on, considering the much greater relative improvement in overall health of the naturopathic patient over the conventional medical patient.

Naturopathic medicine is perhaps best described by its six defining principles:

1. First do no harm
2. Healing occurs by way of nature
3. Treat the whole person
4. Treat the cause
5. Prevent disease
6. Doctor as teacher

"First do no harm" was Hippocrates' instruction to physicians and may be thought of as an application of The Golden Rule. Whatever intervention a doctor can make in a patient's health and life, the only acceptable action is ones that will do no further damage to the patient's health.

Second, naturopaths rely on the healing power of nature to help restore patients to complete health. The really excellent naturopath is one who knows how to "work the modalities": that is to be able to draw from the vast materia medica of natural materials to help the sick get well and be able to apply them to the great variety and complication of illnesses that are common today.

Another principle is to treat the whole person. When one system is out of balance, others may be as well. If a patient has heart disease, the entire system is affected. Our goal is to address every aspect of the patient’s health not just one symptom. 

The fourth principle is to treat the cause. Naturopathy is more than just prescribing herbs for a condition instead of pharmaceutical medications. Treating the whole person means that what may be causing heart disease in one patient does not mean that is the case in the next. A good naturopathic doctor treats the patient in front of them, not the disease.

To prevent disease is another naturopathic principle, and one that is closest to the long-term naturopathic goal of helping patients to achieve a healthy life. This improved lifestyle is what enables the body to regain homeostasis, to strengthen the immune system and to better deflect the constant stresses and toxic conditions that an industrial society imposes. Our study and practice of environmental medicine teaches the importance of removing toxins from the immediate environment (and ideally the larger environment) as well as from the patient's body.

Perhaps the last principle is most important of all. In order to best help patients; it is even more important for a doctor to be a teacher than a healer. In accordance with the idea that if you give someone a fish he may eat that day, but if you teach him to fish he may eat for a lifetime, the doctor must teach how to heal. Ultimately, the most successful patients learn to take responsibility for their own health, with the doctor acting as a resource and tutor toward that goal.