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Medically Trained, Naturally Focused.
The Principles of Naturopathic Medicine:
The Healing Power of Nature: Trust in the body’s inherent wisdom to heal itself.
Identify and Treat the Causes: Look beyond the symptoms to the underlying cause.
First, Do No Harm: Utilize the most natural, least invasive and least toxic therapies.
Doctor as Teacher: Educate patients in the steps to achieving and maintaining health.
Treat the Whole Person: View the body as an integrated whole in all its physical and spiritual dimensions.
Prevention: Focus on overall health, wellness and disease prevention.
A naturopathic doctor is trained as a primary care physician. In addition to our education in medical conditions and medical sciences we learn to optimize the use of modalities like botanical medicine, clinical nutrition, pharmacology, diet, hydrotherapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, physical medicine, homeopathy, and fueling the mind body connection.
Naturopathic Medicine strives to treat the root cause of disease and believes in the bodies ability to be able to heal itself when in the optimal state. While still focusing in eradicating any symptoms you may be experiencing, the goal is to understand why it happened in the first place and treat the underlying cause. Naturopathic Doctors are also able to complete physical exams, run and interpret blood tests/various labs, as well as prescribe some pharmaceutical drugs and complete minor surgeries.
Naturopathic Doctors are educated in the same basic sciences as traditional medical doctors and complete similar licensing exams in the process of becoming licensed. In addition to the two licensing exams, to become a naturopathic doctor in North America you must attend one of the seven accredited Naturopathic Schools across The United States of America and Canada.
Naturopathic Doctors have various regulating boards depending on which state or province they practice in and the scope of practice can vary state to state or province to province.
Please Visit http://www.naturopathic.org/content.asp?contentid=60 to learn more about Naturopathic Doctors and there scope of practice.