But does a naturopath actually give you some willow bark to chew on? From my experience, it is just a plant derived active ingredient. Kinda like the difference between "Natural Flavors" and "Artificial Flavors" in foods. The active chemical is identical, but one comes from a plant, and one was derived in a lab. In the end it doesn't matter too much because they both end up pretty much as identical chemicals in a test tube.
I mostly know of "naturopaths" who are into the homeopathic "mumbo jumbo" so I'm surprised to find out that naturopathic schools attempt to follow the journals.
I kinda think that there are good "doctors" (be it traditional or not) who are up on their science and listen past the 30 seconds they meet you. And then there are regular doctors who don't listen enough and misdiagnose on a regular basis and naturopaths who are into a lot of hand-wavy "medicine" that wouldn't hold much salt if properly tested, but because of the placebo effect find themselves still employed and even convinced of their skills.
"I kinda think that there are good "doctors" (be it traditional or not) who are up on their science and listen past the 30 seconds they meet you."
The best naturopathic doctors are only doing what an allopathic doctor would do if they were more competent. As it stands, the vast majority of allopathic doctors can't name a single medical journal article published in the last year-- not surprising considering how low job satisfaction among doctors is. Certainly not all naturopathic doctors are good, most are basically quacks. But the best naturopathic doctors, the ones who are super intelligent and intrinsically motivated, tend to be better than the allopathic alternative only because they don't have this huge bureaucracy telling them how to do their jobs and killing their intrinsic motivation to do a good job.
I mostly know of "naturopaths" who are into the homeopathic "mumbo jumbo" so I'm surprised to find out that naturopathic schools attempt to follow the journals.
I kinda think that there are good "doctors" (be it traditional or not) who are up on their science and listen past the 30 seconds they meet you. And then there are regular doctors who don't listen enough and misdiagnose on a regular basis and naturopaths who are into a lot of hand-wavy "medicine" that wouldn't hold much salt if properly tested, but because of the placebo effect find themselves still employed and even convinced of their skills.