Conventional Medicine vs. Naturopathic Medicine Approach

I would say one of the biggest differences I’ve seen between conventional medicine and naturopathic medicine is a willingness to explore, an openness to new and “un-conventional” ideas.

Many of the treatments used by naturopathic doctors have been around for hundreds of years and have been successfully used to treat all manner of chronic illness. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t willing to pay for studies on these therapies because they do not stand to make any money off of them.

Naturopathic medicine can be used as a stand in here for any “alternative”, “integrative”, “functional”, “eastern”, “non-traditional” approach to health and wellness.

On the flip side to note that not everything “natural” means safe or effective and just because something has been used for a long time doesn’t mean it will actually work for your particular patient. Critical thinking and proper clinical judgement on the part of the practitioner is always required.

Also to be clear I am very pro conventional, western medicine and it’s advances in curing acute disease and trauma. My issue is with a certain mindset that rejects anything un-conventional that hasn’t been proved with 15 pharmaceutical sponsored meta analyses.

That’s my soap box for today. For more Naturopathic medicine and Chinese medicine insights click on link in bio and sign up for my email list.