Naturopathic Medicine

Naturopathic medicine holds a holistic philosophy on the treatment of medicine. Practitioners argue that a patient requires their entire body analyzed as a whole in order to reach any diagnosis. Naturopathic medicine discourages the use of synthetic medicine and invasive surgery, instead favoring the idea that the human body maintains intrinsic healing ability. As with many forms of alternative medicine, the medical community discredits the ability of naturopathic medicine to aid against sickness.

* After the great strides that modern medicine took during the mid-20th century, naturopathic medicine practices lacked a certain credulity. Prior to this, many schools and systems of accreditation accepted naturopathic medicine as a prominent form of medicine practice. Although practitioners of naturopathic medicine continued to exist, the federal government, as well as several state governments, started to limit their practice of medicine.

* Even though the community of medicine seems to discourage the practice of naturopathic medicine, many of its core components were adopted as commonplace in modern medicine. These include preventative care and an overall sense of keeping the body in good shape. The overarching principles of naturopathic medicine are included in an oath not unlike a common medicine practitioner. The main point of naturopathic medicine, as set-forth in the oath, include; doing no harm in providing the best care with the least patient risk, understand the healing power of nature that exists in every person, treat the entire illness rather than attempting to reduce individual symptoms, encourage an individual responsibility towards health, diagnose patients in consideration of all underlying issues, and encourage a world-wide understanding of medicine.

* Since the advent of modern medicine, naturopathic practice declined due to the inherent problems in attempting to make a uniform system of accreditation. In response to this role-back in naturopathic education, individuals began claiming a certain level of knowledge while lacking any proper training in medicine. Recently, many states have again permitted naturopathic education and allow several institutions to offer degrees.

* Similar problems exist between supporters of naturopathic medicine and the larger medical field as the case with most forms of alternative medicine. The treatment practices of naturopathic medicine fail to comply with modern views of medicine and can theoretically cause further damage to an individual who refuses antibiotics or similarly important medications to treat disease.

Naturopathic medicine encourages individuals to treat their bodies with respect and care. Understandably, modern forms of medicine agree with these and many other views for the study of naturopathic medicine, however, many note the lack of uniformity and scientific findings. The role of naturopathic medicine will likely continue but an overarching shift to naturopathic practices remains unlikely.