naturopathy
palmd | April 21, 2009Overheard from the 210th annual emergency meeting of the Society for Evidence-Free Healing.
Chair: The meeting will come to order.
Some Dude: Seconded.
Chair: Um, I'm the Chair. I don't need a "second".
Some Other Dude: That sounds like an oppressive application of the dominant paradigm.
Chair: Fine, fine. Would anyone object coming to order? No? Thank you very much.
While it may seem to many of you that we have made great strides in having our ancient, holistic healing methods given an official stamp of approval (and perhaps Medicare reimbursement) we have some very troubling…
palmd | April 15, 2009First, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the naturopaty primary care challenge. It was far more successful than I could have hoped. A number of naturopaths and their supporters responded, most of them quite rationally. It takes guts to walk into the fire.
It also takes fanaticism.
I have always rather assumed that most naturopaths and other "alternative" healers are, on the whole, motivated by good. After reading all the comments, I still hold that assumption---most "alternative" healers probably mean well. That does not, however, divorce them from an ethical…
palmd | April 11, 2009Yesterday's piece about naturopathy lead to a nice conversation, but I realized we're missing something. We don't actually have a naturopath to defend the profession.
You see, if, for example, you are curious what your primary care physician might recommend to you, you can go to the American College of Physicians website, or the US Preventative Services Task Force to get an idea of what the standard of care and evidence is for screening, prevention, and treatment. What isn't clear to me is what a naturopathic primary care provider has to offer.
Here's my question, and I encourage any and…
palmd | April 10, 2009I'm a primary care physician. What I, other internists, pediatricians, and family medicine docs do is prevent and treat common diseases. When we get to diseases that require more specialized care, we refer to our specialist colleagues. There is a movement afoot to broaden the role of naturopaths to make them primary care doctors. The big difference between naturopaths and real primary care physicians (PCPs) is that naturopaths haven't gone to medical school, completed a post-graduate residency program, and taken their specialty boards. Why is this important? If a naturopath wants to be…
sb admin | November 19, 2008So, America is changing. We have an African American president. The Latino population continues to grow. How can the alternative medicine community adjust to this demographic shift? What are they to do?
I'm glad you asked! It turns out that immigrants are palomas ripe for the plucking. Now, we've talked about the ethics of alternative medicine, and how "meaning well" is not exculpatory. If you promote quackery, it's wrong, even if you believe your own drivel.
One of the worst types of drivel is naturopathy. This "specialty" advertises itself as "medicine-plus", but really it's "healing-…
sb admin | October 28, 2008I don't like to repost, but Steve Novella has some great pieces up right now, and this is directly related. --PalMD
s I've clearly demonstrated in earlier posts, I'm no philosopher. But I am a doctor, and, I believe, a good one at that, and I find some of this talk about "non-materialist" perspectives in science to be frankly disturbing, and not a little dangerous.
To catch you up on things, consider reading one of Steve Novella's best posts ever over at Neurologica. While you are there, you can also follow his debate with neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, the latest guru of mind-body dualism.
To…
sb admin | July 1, 2008I hadn't realized that Vermont has passed a law requiring insurers to cover naturopathic care.
We've covered extensively the quackery that is naturopathy, but really, if a patient chooses to see a quack, it's their business. But with health care costs soaring, requiring insurers to pay for voodoo is a rather bad idea. Already, many plans cover chiropractic, another unproven treatment. Throwing more health care dollars at more unproved and disproved treatments will help no one (except the quacks who have boat payments to make).
There are many causes of high costs of health care: we…
sb admin | June 12, 2008My little post on naturopathy was more controversial than I had anticipated. Some of the commenters gently (and otherwise) suggested that I should learn more about the subject, so I've been doing a little reading. Here are the basic questions: what is naturopathy, and what might it have to offer that "conventional" medicine lacks?
One of the first places I visited was the website for Bastyr University, which is often cited as having the most prestigious naturopathic program. Their website posts a definition of naturopathy (all emphasis mine):
Naturopathic medicine is a distinct profession…
sb admin | June 10, 2008First, thank you for all the wonderful comments on yesterday's post. I never really know which posts are going to rake in the comments---my favorites are usually the quietest, and some of my quickies bring 'em in by the dozen. According to my uber-seekrit data, I've had two unique visitors to my naturopath post. As erv would say, "UR DOING IT RONG!11!!"
Anyway, I would like to thank my commenters on that post. Even those of you who I think are terribly wrong were at least civil.
I'd love to address all of the issues raised in the comments but I'm far too lazy busy at the moment, but I'd…
sb admin | June 9, 2008I guess it's not just doctors watching this one---an alert reader and a fellow SciBling both picked up on this one. Apparently, in my neighboring state of Minnesota (really, check the map), home to Greg Laden, PZ Myers, and lutefisk, doctor wannabes have legislated themselves into "doctorhood". You see, there is this entity called a "naturopath", or "naturopathic doctor", which is some sort of shaman that likes to think that if you study woo long enough, it becomes science.
OK, OK, I'll settle down, but let's examine this "naturopath" thing. You see, to be a real doctor, you must attend…