Has Anyone considered N.D. or Naturopathic schools?

Started by mclinkin94
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This definition of evidence-based medicine (I'm gonna call it EBM) does not conflict with the principles of naturopathic medicine. Naturopathic medicine is based on a large body of evidence gathered through systematic research and knowledge gained through clinical experience. Its principles support the application of this information to devise the most effective treatment for our patients.

However, the colloquial understanding of EBM supports randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled studies as gold standard of knowledge and leaves little room for other forms of research or for clinical experience.

Conventionally understood EBM is limited in encouraging health care that adheres to naturopathic principles. First, EBM does not recognize holistic treatment of individuals, and in fact seeks to boil down complex information to a simple conclusion recognizing only how the majority of subjects respond to a single intervention. Not only does this ignore the knowledge that could be gained through examining all the subjects in a study and why they each responded in the way that they did, but also is not necessarily applicable to real life health care since patients are nearly never under controlled conditions and subject to only one intervention. Naturopathic doctors are interested in treating real patients in the real world and therefore in gathering knowledge in any area that will serve this purpose. In many cases, this knowledge includes clinical observation and experience with real patients.

Second, funding committed to research is not allocated based on what areas of knowledge are the most interesting, warrant the most investigation, or even may be the most beneficial to the public. Most research is conducted by pharmaceutical companies on products they hope to bring to market in order to earn profits for shareholders. Unfortunately, this capitalist drive behind health knowledge is not conducive to researching how low-cost treatments such as diet and lifestyle changes can be far more effective than any drug. It is also not conducive to gaining knowledge through "failed" experiments, such as when pharmaceutical research does not yield results favourable to the drug being researched. Currently, pharmaceutical companies are not required to publish such research, although there is a movement to change this, thankfully. Naturopathic doctors are interested in achieving results, even if there is no particular product to sell.

Finally, naturopathic doctors also act as teachers, seeking to empower patients with information so that they can care for themselves. EBM places power in a faceless research environment, removing it from clinicians with decades of experience, and therefore also removing it from individual patients who may know their unique needs best.

Therefore, while the official definition of EBM does fit with naturopathic principles, the applied definition, in terms of how the health care system actually operates, does not.

So please stop using evidence based medicine (EBM) in your arguments. Just because ND's are not 100% in compliance with EBM AS WE KNOW IT does not mean that it is not evidence based per se.
 
Just did some searching online and found a picture of McLinkin94:

1282446724425.jpg


Gotta pay the troll toll, to get into that little boy's hol...err soul.
 
You can't practice hardly anywhere, and you're just blowing smoke when/if you are able to practice. Why is this an option?
 
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sworzeh said:
You can't practice hardly anywhere, and you're just blowing smoke when/if you are able to practice. Why is this an option?
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That was the same exact line of thinking of the D.O. degree back then. "You can't practice hardly anywhere, and you're just blowing smoke when/if you are able to practice" was probably said many times about D.O. Where is D.O now? Now it is the near equivalent to M.D's. Why? Because people started seeing the legitimacy of D.O. and people who became D.O's knowing the disadvantage bypassed this system and made D.O. a competitor to MD. The same thing will happen to N.D.

My personal primary care physician is an MD and an ND. He doesn't like to prescribe (due to his ND background) and he keeps stressing how patients need to be their own advocate when it comes to health! For example, while I was shadowing, this MD/ND told this person " If you lose 20 pounds, you wont be on cholesterol medication for the rest of your life!" . Generally patients dont like him because they are lazy.

my point is, there is hope for ND and it will rise just as D.O. did.
 
mclinkin94 said:
That was the same exact line of thinking of the D.O. degree back then. "You can't practice hardly anywhere, and you're just blowing smoke when/if you are able to practice" was probably said many times about D.O. Where is D.O now? Now it is the near equivalent to M.D's. Why? Because people started seeing the legitimacy of D.O. and people who became D.O's knowing the disadvantage bypassed this system and made D.O. a competitor to MD. The same thing will happen to N.D.

My personal primary care physician is an MD and an ND. He doesn't like to prescribe (due to his ND background) and he keeps stressing how patients need to be their own advocate when it comes to health! For example, while I was shadowing, this MD/ND told this person " If you lose 20 pounds, you wont be on cholesterol medication for the rest of your life!" . Generally patients dont like him because they are lazy.

my point is, there is hope for ND and it will rise just as D.O. did.
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So your argument is basically:

1. DOs weren't respected initially and now they are
2. NDs aren't respected
Therefore NDs will eventually be respected?

If you can't see the differences between the introduction and evolution of DOs and that of NDs, then I don't know what to tell you.
 
dude, read wikipedia
a board-certified md and a board-certified do are equivalent
strange that the nd's keep comparing themselves to the do's when the do's have nothing in common with them except for the old holistic label that the nd's plagiarized
pretty hilarious
 
mclinkin94 said:
That was the same exact line of thinking of the D.O. degree back then. "You can't practice hardly anywhere, and you're just blowing smoke when/if you are able to practice" was probably said many times about D.O. Where is D.O now? Now it is the near equivalent to M.D's. Why? Because people started seeing the legitimacy of D.O. and people who became D.O's knowing the disadvantage bypassed this system and made D.O. a competitor to MD. The same thing will happen to N.D.
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No, it came to be accepted as equivalent because they stepped away from their roots and accepted science-based treatments.
 
K31 said:
No, it came to be accepted as equivalent because they stepped away from their roots and accepted science-based treatments.
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Yep, NDs will have to drop homeopathy, I suspect. But to Tank (above), you should review the NCNM or Bastyr (ie accredited program) curricula before you declare similarities or differences between ND and DO. They're more similar (ACADEMICALLY) than you suspect. An objective regional accrediting body verifies those curricula to be accurate, by the way.

Also, both ND and DO emerged during the same period--late 1800s (Benedict Lust and Andrew Still, respectively). It might be harder to prove plagiarism of one off another rather than simply concluding that obviously a significant number of renegade MDs at the time were displeased with conventional practice...
 
mclinkin94 said:
This definition of evidence-based medicine (I'm gonna call it EBM) does not conflict with the principles of naturopathic medicine. Naturopathic medicine is based on a large body of evidence gathered through systematic research and knowledge gained through clinical experience. Its principles support the application of this information to devise the most effective treatment for our patients.

However, the colloquial understanding of EBM supports randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled studies as gold standard of knowledge and leaves little room for other forms of research or for clinical experience.
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Somewhere in all your trolling you managed to make a cogent point. Evidence-based medicine relies heavily on double blind clinical trials and a lot of weight is placed on these trials. However, by the very nature of the way these trials are conducted, sometimes you'll get false positives, and while I'm not so sure about your "large body of evidence", there are clinical trials that exist that have shown some sort of a better than chance result for various naturopathic treatments. However, I don't see this as good evidence for naturopathic medicine, but for the too-narrow view of evidence-based medicine. Rather, I look to science-based medicine. In science-based medicine, physicians and researchers look to understand new discoveries in the context of everything that is already known about science and medicine including disease processes, basic physiology, clinical experience, and basic scientific plausibility. For example, whatever studies may come out about homeopathy, science based medicine tells us that for homeopathy to be true (and water has "memory"), large amounts of well-accepted science, including laws of physics, would have to be wrong.
 
Its all about ND's trying to blend with the "big boys".....its not gonna happen. People will know the difference. They dont have the same training and...therefore...should not have the same rights. Its cut and dry. / thread
 
mclinkin94 said:
This definition of evidence-based medicine (I'm gonna call it EBM) does not conflict with the principles of naturopathic medicine. Naturopathic medicine is based on a large body of evidence gathered through systematic research and knowledge gained through clinical experience. Its principles support the application of this information to devise the most effective treatment for our patients.

However, the colloquial understanding of EBM supports randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled studies as gold standard of knowledge and leaves little room for other forms of research or for clinical experience.

Conventionally understood EBM is limited in encouraging health care that adheres to naturopathic principles. First, EBM does not recognize holistic treatment of individuals, and in fact seeks to boil down complex information to a simple conclusion recognizing only how the majority of subjects respond to a single intervention. Not only does this ignore the knowledge that could be gained through examining all the subjects in a study and why they each responded in the way that they did, but also is not necessarily applicable to real life health care since patients are nearly never under controlled conditions and subject to only one intervention. Naturopathic doctors are interested in treating real patients in the real world and therefore in gathering knowledge in any area that will serve this purpose. In many cases, this knowledge includes clinical observation and experience with real patients.

Second, funding committed to research is not allocated based on what areas of knowledge are the most interesting, warrant the most investigation, or even may be the most beneficial to the public. Most research is conducted by pharmaceutical companies on products they hope to bring to market in order to earn profits for shareholders. Unfortunately, this capitalist drive behind health knowledge is not conducive to researching how low-cost treatments such as diet and lifestyle changes can be far more effective than any drug. It is also not conducive to gaining knowledge through “failed” experiments, such as when pharmaceutical research does not yield results favourable to the drug being researched. Currently, pharmaceutical companies are not required to publish such research, although there is a movement to change this, thankfully. Naturopathic doctors are interested in achieving results, even if there is no particular product to sell.

Finally, naturopathic doctors also act as teachers, seeking to empower patients with information so that they can care for themselves. EBM places power in a faceless research environment, removing it from clinicians with decades of experience, and therefore also removing it from individual patients who may know their unique needs best.

Therefore, while the official definition of EBM does fit with naturopathic principles, the applied definition, in terms of how the health care system actually operates, does not.

So please stop using evidence based medicine (EBM) in your arguments. Just because ND's are not 100% in compliance with EBM AS WE KNOW IT does not mean that it is not evidence based per se.
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http://www.dadamo.com/B2blogs/blogs...evidence-based-medicine-compatible-wi?blog=15

Didn't they teach you not to plagiarize in high school?
 
mclinkin94 said:
Most of us can admit that if we are interested in medicine (and not dentistry, optometry and podiatry) that we are stuck with MD and DO schools. That is not true. Has anyone ever even thought about ND schools. ND degrees are just like MD's and DO's and they require the same pre-medical pre-requisites. They are practically as well trained as MD and DO but they have separate focuses.

What do you think?

MOD NOTE: This is in the Pre-Medical forum because, ND can be an option for pre-meds. May I ask a question. Is there any reason that SDN does not have an ND forum? May I suggest one?
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= macman101
 
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mirimonster said:
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U[/YOUTUBE]

This pretty much sums it up.

"By definition, alternative medicine has either not been proved to work or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine."
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I am so glad someone posted this. I've been in love with that routine since I saw it a year ago.
 
I know I really shouldn't be feeding the troll, but I have a presentation I'm trying to procrastinate on.

mclinkin94 said:
Actually-not really. I never said I wrote this, I just presented the information. Just read it god dam.
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Well, since you are graduating from high school and are presumably going on to college, we should tell you now--always cite your sources and rephrase the information in your on words. Blatant copy/paste like that would be grounds for failure of a course. Repeated violations would be cause for expulsion.

Now to address a couple of points raised:

"Knowledge gained through clinical experience" is another way of saying anecdotal evidence (which, FWIW, is considered the least reliable form of evidence in EBM). Our minds decieve us in multiple subtle ways when we rely on our experience alone--the book Snake Oil Science is a good introduction if you are interested.

However, nobody is saying the EBM is the only way to evaluate a philosophy of medicine. It is limited in what it can answer--usually in the form of "Is X better than Y at achieving defined outcome Z?" There are many tenets of naturopathy that can be evaluated that way, such as many of the herbal treatments they recommend--see the papers I cited in my earlier post.
 
Zoopeda said:
Logical fallacy: "By definition, alternative medicine has not been proven to work or has been proven not to work."

Obviously, alternative means "additional choice." Sometimes there is, of course, more than one credible solution to an answer...two roads to Rome.
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I am not going to enter into this debate, since it's pretty well covered so why reiterate, but calling my video/argument a logical fallacy in order to avoid engaging with the argument is a logical fallacy. It's called the "fallacy fallacy." An no, alternative means alternatives to traditional medicine (MD/DO). That would be an "ambiguity" logical fallacy you used there. Nobody has denied that there is more than one option for medical treatment, and since diet and exercise are aspects of traditional medicine, ND's don't get to claim them. Also this entire thread is full of "appeals to nature" and "anecdotal" logical fallacies. I suggest you print out this chart in case you have any more helpful information for aspiring doctors.
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/poster

Also this is not a "fallacy fallacy" because I am only engaging with the logical fallacy argument, and not the rest of this ridiculous thread. Successful troll is successful.
poster
 
mirimonster said:
I am not going to enter into this debate, since it's pretty well covered so why reiterate, but calling my video/argument a logical fallacy in order to avoid engaging with the argument is a logical fallacy. It's called the "fallacy fallacy." An no, alternative means alternatives to traditional medicine (MD/DO). That would be an "ambiguity" logical fallacy you used there. Nobody has denied that there is more than one option for medical treatment, and since diet and exercise are aspects of traditional medicine, ND's don't get to claim them. Also this entire thread is full of "appeals to nature" and "anecdotal" logical fallacies. I suggest you print out this chart in case you have any more helpful information for aspiring doctors.
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/poster

Also this is not a "fallacy fallacy" because I am only engaging with the logical fallacy argument, and not the rest of this ridiculous thread. Successful troll is successful.
poster
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No, if you understood my comment as a so-called "fallacy fallacy," then you misunderstood my comment. My point is an obvious one: There is often more than one solution to a problem. In the case of illness, there is often more than one cure for disease. Your comment assumes that MDs are all-knowing of traditional and "natural" methods. This is obviously not true, just as no naturopath is all-knowing of all things mainstream. We have the privilege of living in a capitalist society where competition drives innovation and ultimately defines the status quo. The flip side is that we end up with the beneficiaries of drug sales often designing and publishing studies for their own products. As a result, we accept some degree of subjective bias along with a lot of very valuable and objectively credible information. I'm simply suggesting that some natural therapies--especially those that cannot be patented or sold at enormous profit--are discarded for other methods that generate higher reimbursement. The nutty crowd here on SDN is undoubtedly going to spin this comment into all kinds of extreme directions, but what I'm really calling for is a calm, rational examination of all suggested approaches--whether they be allopathic, naturopathic, or some far-out native American remedies with promise--in order to arrive at a less slanted truth that further benefits our patients. Obviously the American medical system has evolved to an impressive degree, but we have yet to outrun our egos and private interests. Now go ahead, trash me and derail a very relevant conversation.
 
tiedyeddog said:
They speak English at those schools, dearest troll-seph.
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I 100% agree as well with this statement. Plus I'd find it to be stupid to go hypothetical spanish language carib forking 250,000 dollars when you could just to to an elite private mexican med school for only 10% of the cost and graduate sooner because they don't demand an expensive undergrad degree to get in. The only reason i could see the point of spanish carib school was to get USMLE aimed courses and even the Autonomous University of Guadalajara offers those courses anyways at a smaller cost.
 
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Zoopeda said:
No, if you understood my comment as a so-called "fallacy fallacy," then you misunderstood my comment. My point is an obvious one: There is often more than one solution to a problem. In the case of illness, there is often more than one cure for disease. Your comment assumes that MDs are all-knowing of traditional and "natural" methods. This is obviously not true, just as no naturopath is all-knowing of all things mainstream. We have the privilege of living in a capitalist society where competition drives innovation and ultimately defines the status quo. The flip side is that we end up with the beneficiaries of drug sales often designing and publishing studies for their own products. As a result, we accept some degree of subjective bias along with a lot of very valuable and objectively credible information. I'm simply suggesting that some natural therapies--especially those that cannot be patented or sold at enormous profit--are discarded for other methods that generate higher reimbursement. The nutty crowd here on SDN is undoubtedly going to spin this comment into all kinds of extreme directions, but what I'm really calling for is a calm, rational examination of all suggested approaches--whether they be allopathic, naturopathic, or some far-out native American remedies with promise--in order to arrive at a less slanted truth that further benefits our patients. Obviously the American medical system has evolved to an impressive degree, but we have yet to outrun our egos and private interests. Now go ahead, trash me and derail a very relevant conversation.
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Dude, it's pretty obvious you have zero to no experience in the pharmaceutical world, or medicine for that matter. There are tons of drugs that are sold and made that are off-patent and literally anyone could make. Also, there are drugs that are easy to make and very cheaply sold with little profit margin.

Examples: Aspirin - "natural", found in the willow trees but now made by a cheaper chemical synthesis. Ever see aspirin in a grocery store? Is it cheap? Hell yes.

Calcium carbonate, Calcium gluconate, Folic Acid - no one owns friggen patents to this stuff and it is made and sold very cheaply by pharma companies... There is very low profit margins in making these but companies still do. If there is a demand, someone will make it and someone will buy it.

Lithium - Patent expired like a century ago. Was originally used for gout treatment. Was repurposed decades later for mental illness. That means companies had to test it in a whole new population for a drug that couldn't patent.

If a company found a cheap substance that was "natural" they could someone turn around and sell it, they would do it. If tincture of rose actually cured headaches, some company would jump on that crap in a heartbeat and mass produce it.

If heating your kid when they have a fever of 104F (which sounds like child abuse to me) actually reduced a fever, doctors would tell you to do it. Since the standard of care for pediatric fevers is to do NOTHING unless the hyperthermia is getting extremely high, why would they not? They don't make money either way.

Last point, which you seem to not get. There is a limited amount of money out there to be spent on clinical trials. Let's say you could spend money on one of these two things:

1. A anti-lipid drug that has shown efficacy in two different animal models and in phase 1 trials, in which the mechanism behind the drug has been elucidated. Might prevent 100K strokes a year.

2. Heating children with pediatric, non-mortally threatening fevers just to cool them down a few degrees, in which the mechanism behind it makes ZERO sense with out current clinical knowledge just because some parents saw it work a few times on their kids?
 
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Zoopeda said:
The trouble with wikipedia is that a) it's written by people who often don't know what they're talking about (ie, the reason no academic institution will accept it as a credible citation), and b) it is a product of the mainstream and therefore inherently biased against anything unconventional (medical or otherwise).
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A) Wikipedia is not accepted as a source because it is an encyclopedia, albeit an online one. Encyclopedias have traditionally never been accepted as an academic source because it is not the source, just a centralized location where you have found a source. As other noted you then need to look at, or scroll to, the sources and then use those.

B) If you are not willing to accept the answers you ask for, and just write them off as illegitimate there is no point in trying to discuss this with you.
 
I've never considered being an ND for the same reasons I've never considered honestly being a dentist or pharmacist. It's not the field I want to go into. I have specific interests that an ND will not provide me the tools to achieve. It is as simple as that.
 
There are many patients which have an inherent distrust for traditional medicine and prefer the natural approach, though they may need traditional medicine for their condition (e.g. cancer). Often, these patients have strong personal or religious views which are not easily altered. These patients come in many flavors. Some are poor, and some are highly successful (e.g. Steve Jobs). As an MD, you cannot simply show them a journal article that points to drug 'x' having the best outcome for condition 'y'. They won't be convinced; especially when their 'faith', for example, is telling them that their disease is an 'attack of the devil' and they need to 'believe' for their healing. For some (obvious) reason, these types of folks are all too willing to run to natural medicine. Many of them believe that natural medicine was given to us by 'God' and that it is not a sign of 'unbelief', therefore, to use it, unlike chemical pharmaceuticals. One can only hope that such patients finding themselves in front of an ND might at least have improved chances of securing conventional treatment, as the ND would have an ethical obligation to try to counsel the patient to consider the conventional approaches if no natural alternatives exist. Of course, the ND could help them create natural, healthful plans to strengthen immunity and such, but I would like to think that a modern ND would not tell a patient that ‘yes, I can cure that' when they can't. That would constitute fraud and murder, imo.

Please don't think that I am a ND hater, though, as I'm not. I believe that NDs can be useful in many cases from an augmentative role. It is true that many conditions are a result of unhealthy lifestyle choices and stress, and I think that NDs are exceptionally trained to work with patients in these areas. I just believe that the abilities of a ND to treat disease are limited, so I support the idea of integrate practice where MD/DOs work with NDs to provide complete medical care to all patients. Such cooperation, though, requires better cross-philosophical communication than what's been observed in this thread. I think that it is shameful that either side is unwilling to even consider what the other is saying. We need to remember, folks, that we will have patients that will disagree with our treatment proposals, and we can't (or shouldn't) just 'ban' them from our health care site when we find them a bit frustrating.
 
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JESSFALLING said:
There are many patients which have an inherent distrust for traditional medicine and prefer the natural approach, though they may need traditional medicine for their condition (e.g. cancer). Often, these patients have strong personal or religious views which are not easily altered. These patients come in many flavors. Some are poor, and some are highly successful (e.g. Steve Jobs). As an MD, you cannot simply show them a journal article that points to drug 'x' having the best outcome for condition 'y'. They won't be convinced; especially when their 'faith', for example, is telling them that their disease is an 'attack of the devil' and they need to 'believe' for their healing. For some (obvious) reason, these types of folks are all too willing to run to natural medicine. Many of them believe that natural medicine was given to us by 'God' and that it is not a sign of 'unbelief', therefore, to use it, unlike chemical pharmaceuticals. One can only hope that such patients finding themselves in front of an ND might at least have improved chances of securing conventional treatment, as the ND would have an ethical obligation to try to counsel the patient to consider the conventional approaches if no natural alternatives exist. Of course, the ND could help them create natural, healthful plans to strengthen immunity and such, but I would like to think that a modern ND would not tell a patient that ‘yes, I can cure that’ when they can’t. That would constitute fraud and murder, imo.

Please don't think that I am a ND hater, though, as I'm not. I believe that NDs can be useful in many cases from an augmentative role. It is true that many conditions are a result of unhealthy lifestyle choices and stress, and I think that NDs are exceptionally trained to work with patients in these areas. I just believe that the abilities of a ND to treat disease are limited, so I support the idea of integrate practice where MD/DOs work with NDs to provide complete medical care to all patients.
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That's interesting. I support the idea of NDs going away instead.
 
tantacles said:
That's interesting. I support the idea of NDs going away instead.
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I support the idea of NDs practicing within an appropriate scope (e.g. nutritional counseling, stress reduction, etc.)

OMT started as a 'cure all' approach, but its practitioners soon realized that it didn't provide benefit for many conditions. So, the osteopathic physician became primarily an orthodox physician with a supplemental treatment modality. This is where the ND profession is headed, unless it is confined to only practicing natural medicine........which could happen if the integrative approach were widely adopted, as the profession might not then feel the need to expand scope, like the DOs felt, to meet patients' needs.
 
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I'm constantly impressed by the number of people who think they know what's wrong with American medicine and how it could be improved when they've never worked in medicine to any serious degree. I love hearing from people about the pharm industry when they've never studied pharm or worked in pharm. And I especially love hearing about research and validity of sources and studies from people who haven't spent years and years doing research, and being part of a community of researchers, and writing research articles. It's so entertaining to see people lecture about medical doctors and naturopathic doctors, what they should be doing and how they should be doing it when these people are neither medical doctors nor naturopathic doctors, nor students attaining those degrees.

If you're interested in something, learn everything you possibly can about it, search for information, read everything you can get your hands on. But don't get ahead of yourself. Constantly keep in mind that you don't know what you don't know.
 
JESSFALLING said:
I support the idea of NDs practicing within an appropriate scope (e.g. nutritional counseling, stress reduction, etc.)

OMT started as a 'cure all' approach, but its practitioners soon realized that it didn't provide benefit for many conditions. So, the osteopathic physician became primarily an orthodox physician with a supplemental treatment modality. This is where the ND profession is headed, unless it is confined to only practicing natural medicine........which could happen if the integrative approach were widely adopted, as the profession might not then feel the need to expand scope, like the DOs felt, to meet patients' needs.
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I disagree and continue to believe that "go away" should be the proper mantra when it comes to NDs.
 
JESSFALLING said:
I support the idea of NDs practicing within an appropriate scope (e.g. nutritional counseling, stress reduction, etc.)

OMT started as a 'cure all' approach, but its practitioners soon realized that it didn't provide benefit for many conditions. So, the osteopathic physician became primarily an orthodox physician with a supplemental treatment modality. This is where the ND profession is headed, unless it is confined to only practicing natural medicine........which could happen if the integrative approach were widely adopted, as the profession might not then feel the need to expand scope, like the DOs felt, to meet patients' needs.
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You are wrong about the founding philosophy of osteopathic medicine. I'm not going to launch into a diatribe about it, but you need to do more research on this if you care enough to try to teach people about it on the internet.
 
illegallysmooth said:
You are wrong about the founding philosophy of osteopathic medicine. I'm not going to launch into a diatribe about it, but you need to do more research on this if you care enough to try to teach people about it on the internet.
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I was certainly simplifying the historical chain of events, but I didn't post anything that isn't true. Many early osteopathic practitioners believed, or at least advertised that they did, that osteopathy was effective for most every disorder, including headache, deafness, constipation, gall stones, kidney issues, woman's diseases, rheumatism, varicose veins, cancers, etc.

Maybe anti-allopathic would have been a better way to describe doctor Still's early beliefs, though. Here's a quote from him in the context of his first medical school, "No system of allopathy, with its fatal drugs, should e'er be permitted to enter our doors." He went on to say that Anatomy was the sole medical certainty, and as such, did not initially want to teach other subjects like physiology.

It was primarily osteopathic surgical practitioners like Frank Young, DO, MD, and James Littlejohn, DO, MD, which created lists of conditions that osteopathy should not be used for.

(source: The D.O.s)

Please feel free to further develop the timeline if you think something critical is missing.
 
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You are pulling out quotes without context and lack the medical knowledge to judge what osteopathic manipulative medicine is or isn't "effective" for (and by listing those ailments in that context, you are implying those practitioners were wrong, and that those sentiments have changed). Additionally, by failing to consider allopathic physicians' beliefs regarding treatment modalities in that time period, you're arriving at a false conclusion regarding osteopathic medicine's relation to naturopathic medicine. They both seem "out there," since they are different from current allopathic medicine. Tables are not chairs. Lamps are not chairs. This doesn't mean lamps are like tables.
 
illegallysmooth said:
You are pulling out quotes without context and lack the medical knowledge to judge what osteopathic manipulative medicine is or isn't "effective" for (and by listing those ailments in that context, you are implying those practitioners were wrong, and that those sentiments have changed). Additionally, by failing to consider allopathic physicians' beliefs regarding treatment modalities in that time period, you're arriving at a false conclusion regarding osteopathic medicine's relation to naturopathic medicine because to they were both different from allopathic medicine. Tables are not chairs. Lamps are not chairs. This doesn't mean lamps are like tables.
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Well crap, I'm sorry that I can't quote the whole darn book for you. I didn't take anything out of context though!! Read chapter 2 again to refresh your memory. If my depiction of the development of the DO profession isn't accurate, then please feel free to elaborate.....but don't just rudely dismiss what I'm saying. I also realize that the modern application of osteopathic medicine is quite different and that one wouldn't advertise omm's use to treat such diseases.
 
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JESSFALLING said:
Well crap, I'm sorry that I can't quote the whole darn book for you. I didn't take anything out of context though!! Read chapter 2 again to refresh your memory.
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I don't expect you to quote the whole book. If you decide to list the beliefs of osteopathic physicians in the late 1800s in order to make a comparison to allopathic medicine (so as to demonstrate that naturopathy diverges from allopathic medicine in a similar fashion), then you have to compare osteopathic principles in the late 1800s to allopathic principles in the late 1800s. The divergence of osteopathic medicine from allopathic medicine in that time period is not similar to the divergence of naturopathic medicine to allopathic medicine today. It'd also be worth it to research other types of physicians that were sometimes grouped under allopathic medicine (because they received MD degrees), such as the eclectic physicians.
 
illegallysmooth said:
I don't expect you to quote the whole book. If you decide to list the beliefs of osteopathic physicians in the late 1800s in order to make a comparison to allopathic medicine (so as to demonstrate that naturopathy diverges from allopathic medicine in a similar fashion), then you have to compare osteopathic principles in the late 1800s to allopathic principles in the late 1800s. The divergence of osteopathic medicine from allopathic medicine in that time period is not similar to the divergence of naturopathic medicine to allopathic medicine today. It'd also be worth it to research other types of physicians that were sometimes grouped under allopathic medicine (because they received MD degrees), such as the eclectic physicians.
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I see where you are going here.......this would be a worthwhile project, though probably a bit long for a SDN thread.
 
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JESSFALLING said:
Please don't think that I am a ND hater, though, as I'm not. I believe that NDs can be useful in many cases from an augmentative role. It is true that many conditions are a result of unhealthy lifestyle choices and stress, and I think that NDs are exceptionally trained to work with patients in these areas.
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NDs are in no way more qualified than a physician to council on 'lifestyle choices and stress'. Actually they're arguably less competent that any person you could pull off the street to council patients on those things, because your average person isn't 100% likely to recommend a selection of expensive and useless herbal solutions along with whatever common sense dietary advice they give. A good professional to take an augmentative role for counciling patients about lifestyle choices and stress would be someone with actual evidence based credentials in one of those areas, such as a psychologist, dietician, or personal trainer. Of course, in a world of limited resources, a more realistic approach might be to realize that unmotivated patients rarely see drastic improvements from unilateral interventions an just stick to supporting them medically.

I just believe that the abilities of a ND to treat disease are limited, so I support the idea of integrate practice where MD/DOs work with NDs to provide complete medical care to all patients.
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Again, the ability of money grubbing quacks to treat actual pathology isn't 'limited', its non existent. This goes for NDs, chiropractors, Reiki healers, acupuncturists, homeopaths, hydrotherapists, amulet dealers, and sundry. They don't 'supplement', they don't 'consult', they are neither 'complementary' nor an 'alternative', they are absolutely f-ing useless. They exist to rob the gullible, desperate, and dying in exchange for false hope. If you think that's a worthwhile exchange then just sell your patients sugar pills directly. Tell them that its a magical cure for their cancer that is legally a food supplement. If you're going to debase your profession for the sake of enriching a predatory charlatan you might as well be the guy who gets rich.

We need to remember, folks, that we will have patients that will disagree with our treatment proposals, and we can't (or shouldn't) just 'ban' them from our health care site when we find them a bit frustrating.
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Neither do you need to agree with them. Remember that these quacks got where they are by selling a philosophy, part of your duty on behalf of medicine is to sell ours. People do listen to physicians (some patients anyway) and if you stand by and let those people get robbed in the name of good communication skills I think that makes you culpable. When someone tells you they're using an herb, chiropractor, amulet, or reiki session you need to say, clearly and unambiguously 'that doesn't work' and make it clear that you're available if they have any questions about the evidence of medicine. If they roll their eyes you're free to let it drop, but I think you need to make the effort.
 
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If i was interested in making money off of the placebo effect. I would. I had to job shadow one of these in high school. SUCH a joke. The doctor had convinced people they were allergic to electricity, other people, unborn child, etc... I would never go into it.
 
I totally agree with Perrotfish here, which I guess is unsurprising. ND's and MD/DO's working in unison does nothing to support patient care. You can't stop patients from going to ND's but you can for sure say you don't agree with it and almost all of what they do is either not backed up by any evidence whatsoever or even harmful. You don't need to show anyone the results of an RCT. Your average patient won't have any idea what any of it means.

Just because ND's give some treatment to patients who have spurned traditional medicine doesn't mean that something add's anything to patient care. I think physicians need to make a push to address the original problems patients have with traditional medicine instead of embracing the pseudo-religion known as naturopathy.

And you know, I think most of the people who turn to naturopathy and other alternative medicines have valid qualms. Medicine today is too expensive, big pharma DOES have some of the highest profit margins of ANY industry, today's physicians often don't take or have the time to address emotional issues evolved in their practice of medicine. Many of these people just want a humanistic physician who works with other physicians instead of in isolation. There is nothing wrong with that.
 
Thank you for those that have commented on my previous post. Please be assured that patient care is my primary concern, and I would never advocate for something that I felt would degrade such care. Anyway, for those who are interested, here is an article (2010) that seemed to cover the idea of ND/DO partnership from a variety of perspectives: https://www.do-online.org/TheDO/?p=2461

Also, here's a link to the Naturopathic Formulary in Oregon: http://www.oregon.gov/obnm/rules/850-060-0226_1.pdf I was surprised to see how broad it is. I think it is a concern that NDs have such broad prescriptive authority there without the associated breadth of clinical training (e.g. Residency).

I would be interested to know if any MS4 students feel that they would be prepared to prescribe the majority of those drugs straight out of medical school.
 
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