Should I try and become a Nurse in a Naturopathic Clinic or a Naturopathic Doctor?

Specialties Holistic Nursing Q/A

I am a 21 year old female and have been taking my prerequisites for Nursing. I felt very passionate about my choice, I do really enjoy caring for people and helping people. However, as I got further into my studies, talked to various RNs, and had researched the career for awhile, I realized how horrible our health care system really is in the U.S. I think that we rely too heavily on drugs and intoxicants, therefore I don't want to have to inject people with a bunch of drugs, like nurses have to do sometimes.

My mother in law who is an RN told me that at her hospital 14 patients died in one month due to medical errors(being given the wrong drugs).Then she told me that they actually had someone who's job it was to "erase" the medical error so that it doesn't make the hospital look bad and they never told the patients family. I was horrified. I don't want any part of that.

I believe that an organic diet, exercise, herbal TEAS, meditation, acupuncture, acupressure, Craniospinal therapy, etc. are the best ways of treating and preventing illness. So I have decided that I either want to be a Nurse(and later Nurse Practitioner) who works in a Naturopathic Clinic, or become a doctor who uses natural and alternative . My question is, to become a Naturopathic doctor do you HAVE to go to a special Naturopathic medical school or could you go to medical school and then just start your own Naturopathic practice?

Also, which option sounds best? I know that I would have to have a Bachelor's degree before I could go to med school anyway, so should I just continue on with Nursing and try to get into a Naturopathic Clinic?

Thanks

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Wow. That is a whole lot of crap in just 5 lines. Yes, alternative "medicine"

is old, so what? Something being old does not make it true or effective. Look up the argument from antiquity. The main reason we live longer than ever before in human history is because science and science-based medicine have made it possible for most of us to make it out of childhood alive, and well into our 70s and 80s.

And I suspect that, yes, many people die while being treated by modern medicine because many, many people have the common sense to seek out modern medicine over quackery. Why? Because it usually works. Does it cure everything? Of course not, and it has never claimed to do so. But it has a track record that trumps any form of quackery out there.

You need to go back and study the true history behind conventional medicine. When was it started? Why was it started? Let me simplify it for you, conventional medicine was started simply for monetary purposes. It was more profitable to keep people sick enough to just receive treatment rather than cure their disease completely. The government/medical industry has suppressed over 6000 invented cures that could have saved humanity from every disease out there including cancer. Do you really think they want to find a cure? You are so gullible.

Specializes in Tele, Medsurg, Stepdown.
You need to go back and study the true history behind conventional medicine. When was it started? Why was it started? Let me simplify it for you, conventional medicine was started simply for monetary purposes. It was more profitable to keep people sick enough to just receive treatment rather than cure their disease completely.

Evidence please?

The government/medical industry has suppressed over 6000 invented cures that could have saved humanity from every disease out there including cancer. Do you really think they want to find a cure? You are so gullible.

I like your tin foil hat. You do know how insane you sound, yes? No, I guess you don't.

Evidence please?

I like your tin foil hat. You do know how insane you sound, yes? No, I guess you don't.

So, just to be clear...you don't believe Big Pharma is controlling the pharmaceutical treatments we have available to us? You don't think it's all about the money for them? Just curious.

Physical or mental...one way or another...future "wound" nurse.

You need to go back and study the true history behind conventional medicine. When was it started? Why was it started? Let me simplify it for you, conventional medicine was started simply for monetary purposes. It was more profitable to keep people sick enough to just receive treatment rather than cure their disease completely. The government/medical industry has suppressed over 6000 invented cures that could have saved humanity from every disease out there including cancer. Do you really think they want to find a cure? You are so gullible.

Good lord, I meant to hit "quote" and hit "like" instead.

Do you have some sort of evidence of this? It's very conspiracy theory/Natural News sounding to me.

Specializes in NICU.

I see the point about the govt and medical industry suppressing a cancer cure. There's probably more money to be made in a whole treatment regime than in a single cure. But I simply canNOT believe that that knowledge wouldn't leak to the public. A cure for male pattern baldness, maybe. But cancer? No, someone would blab.

I read evidence-based medical articles with a grain of salt, as it is. Some articles that helped lead to my skepticism are below.

1) A paper from the Journal of Clinical Oncology that describes how the standards for lung cancer clinical trials have slipped, such that drug trials that don't conclusively show a benefit are still touted as having positive results.

"disquieting is the tendency of investigators to impute clinically meaningful value to progressively lower survival benefits."

"A more worrisome trend is the recent increase in the number of trials deemed to be positive despite their failure to meet a preplanned primary statistical end point. This tendency was most evident post 2000, after which a substantial percentage of trials were said to be positive on the basis of a nonsignificant trend in the primary end point, an improvement in a secondary trial end point (eg, toxicity), or a claim of noninferiority in trials that were not designed to assess noninferiority.10 Although many factors could account for this trend, undoubtedly a desire to salvage something positive out of an otherwise negative study played a major role."

JCO : Journal of Clinical Oncology

Continuing my comment above...

I tried to locate an article I read in the Wall Street Journal about bias and insider dealings between researchers and peer reviewers from earlier this year, but I wasn't able to find it. I did, however, find this older WSJ article about pharmaceutical company-paid ghostwriters writing scientific journal articles that support and promote the companies' drug products:

At Medical Journals, Writers Paid by Industry Play Big Role - WSJ

The below Scientific American article reports on cases of research fraud perpetuated by an anesthesiologist. He was funded by Pfizer and published multiple research studies on the efficacy of their COX2 inhibitors for treating post-op pain. Turns out his studies were made up and he never even did the research:

A Medical Madoff: Anesthesiologist Faked Data in 21 Studies - Scientific American

What I'm getting at is that even the gold standard of medical practice, evidence-based research, is not that perfect or pristine. As health professionals, we would do best for our patients by maintaining a high level of scrutiny of the information we receive, whether we favor allopathic or naturopathic modalities.

Sorry, one more observation about evidence-based research --

If you look at the highest, most scientific type of clinical research -- the randomized clinical trial -- you'll notice that the studies always compare X treatment to Y treatment. Essentially, the studies are picking the better treatment among the two choices (sometimes more, but never more than a handful of options) and promoting that treatment as the champion. Therefore, the study could conclude that since Treatment X performed better, it is the superior treatment and should be recommended in practice guidelines. However, it doesn't consider Treatment A or Treatment B because those weren't part of the study. Who knows -- maybe A or B would have performed better had they been included in the trial. Just because X performed better in a study of X and Y treatments, doesn't mean it's necessarily better than ALL the other treatments out there.

I found that Wall Street Journal article on the bias in peer review. Here's an example of one of the ways that scientific researchers can get shady:

"Both studies were published without a review of the data used to reach the finding. No one has been able to reproduce the results of either paper, including the EPA, which did expensive, time-consuming reviews of the pesticide brought about by the published claims. As the agency investigated, it couldn't even use those papers about atrazine's alleged effects because the research they were based on didn't meet the criteria for legitimate scientific work. The authors refused to hand over data that led them to their claimed results—which meant no one could run the same computer program and match their results."

Hank Campbell: The Corruption of Peer Review Is Harming Scientific Credibility - WSJ

Specializes in Hospice and Palliative Nurse.

Really? I can attest to what I know to be true. I am close to 60, cholesterol was going up (289). My physician recommended I start statins. I asked if she would prescribe fish oil first. Reluctantly she gave me a prescription for 4 grams a day. After three months....my numbers are NORMAL (110). No statins, no side effects. I use colloidal silver spray (10 PPM) at the first sign of a sniffle and it has worked twice. I have cut out GMO's (no corn, soy or processed food), no fast food, no tap water or fluoride. Do what you want...I choose natural as often as I can.

PS: you were rude dude...

Specializes in OB, Family Practice, Pediatrics.

I find it interesting that when the allopathic community tries to validate their stance, a procedure, method, medication, etc. they refer to it as being backed by "science"; and anything not backed by science that is shown to work is "anecdotal". However, when something is used in allopathic medicine and it doesn't work, they say "Medicine is not an "exact-science."

CAM is actually not "alternative", it is actually "traditional". CAM methods existed long before the advent of allopathic methods. I agree that if the same amount of money was spent studying CAM, as the "mainstream" medicine that is practiced in the U.S., there would be a lot more documented evidence of it's efficacy. But as someone mentioned earlier, the pharmaceutical companies don't want that to happen.

Garlic has been proven to kill viruses and bacteria and lower blood pressure; without side effects. So does that fact that physicians in the U.S. don't prescribe garlic mean that it doesn't work, NO.

Cranberry has been proven to benefit the urinary tract and aid in the treatment of U.T.I's without side effects. Only some doctors now recommend it, does that mean it doesn't work, NO.

Anti-inflammatory diets have been proven to improve pain and inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis, gout and other autoimmune disorders without side effects; but does the fact that doctors don't recommend them mean that they don't work, NO.

There is a place for our medical advances in certain situations, with certain conditions; however, Traditional (CAM methods) work as well or better in many situations; without toxic side effects; that create additional problems, up to and including death. If the U.S. mainstream system was stellar, we would not have medication lawsuits left and right for medications that potentially cause 3-20 other serious conditions that are worse than what is being treated. Not to mention, the exponential risk of complications with each medication added.

I hope that the OP has pursued her passion to be a holistic/naturopathic provider.

So I've read almost the entire post and it went from about 2responses actually directed at the OP and answering their question to an argument about the legitimacy of natural medicine (which, forgive me, as a new user &prenursing student- should be safe and avoidable in the Holistic Nursing section of this forum, no?). I appreciate ALL of the wonderful soldiers on the front lines of truth about the natural path, however I feel we've failed the OP (& others inquiring, such as myself).

I've read these boards for 2 months now since I decided to pursue nursing. I fell more& more in love with what you men& women do everyday from skills& knowledge to passion& patient care. I only joined to ask my own questions, but I love the wisdom in these boards. That said, I too have recently discovered Naturopathy &a degree program I have fallen for. Nursing is holistic in theory, approach, &practice (from what I've read) but Naturopathy puts me directly in the field I want to be, from education to scope of practice, I fully believe in this path &as a nurse I would be working towards this holistic, natural medicine, herbs& therapies approach anyway.

Im starting prereqs Spring 15. I'm wondering if I should get my ADN, become an RN to learn the type of bedside care &hands on experience that I admire, while gaining experience working w.allopathic doctors/proceedures equipment (even w.my passion for natural medicine, I do feel the need to have experience working w.in the allopathic system) &get sci creds &go to naturopathic med school or go straight for a regular BS (in say, bio) &med school?

I am young, 23, but I have acquired a bit of debt on my own &I have 2little ones at home. I suppose this is which is both time and cost effective while satisfying short term needs &long term goals.

(Bracing for the wolves)

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