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Naturopathic Medicine
What is a Naturopathic Doctor (ND)?
A Naturopathic Doctor (ND) has completed a postgraduate medical education specializing in primary care natural medicine. Naturopathic doctors are distinct from acupuncturists, chiropractors, osteopaths, and medical doctors. They are uniquely trained to provide a comprehensive and integrated approach to assist your body's innate healing processes. Naturopathic doctors are skilled in diagnosis and treatment of disease utilizing natural therapeutics including clinical nutrition, herbal medicine, homeopathy, physical medicine, and hydrotherapy.
Naturopathic medicine is based on the belief that a practitioner should treat the cause of a symptom and not just the symptom itself. NDs understand that symptoms are oftentimes clues to the underlying causes of disease. NDs are trained to ask: "Why are these symptoms present?" In order to answer this question, NDs consider each individual from a physical, mental, emotional, genetic, environmental and social perspective.
Naturopathic doctors cooperate with all other branches within the medical field, referring patients to other practitioners for diagnosis or treatment when appropriate. As with all physicians today, Naturopathic doctors are trained at accredited, four to five-year, post-graduate, medical institutions. Currently, there are three accredited programs in the US. The training consists of a comprehensive study of the conventional medical sciences, including anatomy, physiology, pathology, microbiology, immunology, clinical and physical diagnosis, laboratory diagnosis, cardiology, gastroenterology, gynecology, etc, as well as detailed study of a wide variety of natural therapies. In their last two years of their intensive clinical training, they learn how to integrate the principles of naturopathic medicine into clinical practice.
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