What’s Natural Medicine?

Naturopathic medicine is a truly holistic approach to your healthcare. We strive to treat the whole person and get to the root cause of disease instead of treating symptoms. Naturopathic medicine is a very inclusive term, but we use various modalities to get you feeling like your best self. The treatment options that are available to us include nutrition, lifestyle modification, botanical medicine, homeopathy, vitamin/mineral supplementation, IV therapy, and pharmaceutical intervention as needed.

 

The six tenets that are the foundation of Naturopathic Medicine include:

  • The Healing Power of Nature (Vis Medicatrix Naturae): We believe in the body’s innate ability to heal itself. Naturopaths work with patients to remove the obstacles to cure which helps to restore balance.
  • Identify and Treat the Cause (Tolle Causam): We work to identify the cause of illness instead of just suppressing the symptoms.
  • First Do No Harm (Primum Non Nocere): Naturopathic physicians want to remove obstacles to cure, but do not want to add to a patient’s suffering. To do this, we use medicinal substances with minimal harmful side effects, avoid harmful suppression of symptoms, and work with an individual’s self-healing process.
  • Doctor as Teacher (Docere): Naturopathic physicians educate their patients and encourage them to take responsibility for their health.
  • Treat the Whole Person: We look into all aspects of a patient’s health since there are multiple factors in a person’s life that can affect their health or ability to heal. We also treat each person as the individual that they are and give them a treatment plan that is specific to them.
  • Prevention: This is the tenet that sets us apart from allopathic physicians. Naturopathic physicians prefer to prevent illness before it has a chance to take over your life.

Education of an Accredited Naturopath (N.D.)

The N.D. curriculum is a rigorous 4-5 year doctorate program with additional clinical and apprenticeship training. Admittance to the program is dependent on completion of a bachelor’s degree with excessive coursework in the biomedical sciences. For a complete list of the N.D curriculum at National University of Natural Medicine, click here.

 

Upon completion of the first 2 years of training, one is eligible to sit for NPLEX part 1 which is the basic science portion of the exam. After passing the exam and finishing the last couple years of medical school, students sit for NPLEX part 2 which is the clinical science portion of the exam. Once both exams have been successfully completed and passed, you may apply for licensure in the state you wish to practice in.

 

Click here for a curricula comparison between conventional medical schools, accredited naturopathic medical schools, and non-accredited naturopathic schools.