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My Career Profession: Naturopathic Medicine

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My Career Prospect - Essay
Course: SOSC 1510 (6.0)
Ruwaida Alvi
211702834
TA: Kyle Bailey
March 18, 2015

Naturopathic medicine is a primary health care system that uses traditional and natural methods with the support of modern scientific knowledge to stimulate the body’s self-healing power (Anonymous, 1999). Naturopathic medicine benefits the patient by treating the causes of the disease and not just the symptoms (Anonymous, 1999). Being a naturopathic doctor will allow me to fulfill my desire to learn about natural medicine in order to help patients heal in a natural way instead of using prescribed drugs, which restrain the body’s natural immune system. This paper will cover the job description of an average naturopathic …show more content…

In Canada, naturopathic medicine is gaining formal recognition, including provincial regulation; currently it is only regulated in four out of 10 provinces, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario (Verhoef, Boon, & Mutasingwa, 2006). The role of the government in regulating professions such as naturopathic medicine appears to be changing. For example, the government of Ontario is actively considering the regulation of naturopathy under the Regulated Health Professions Act (Verhoef, Boon, & Mutasingwa, 2006). Regardless of gaining recognition, naturopathic medicine still faces challenges in being accepted as a proper health care profession within the Canadian health care system this is because it finds itself in direct competition with biomedicine. Naturopathic medicine faces the danger of being overshadowed by an already established biomedical system that is increasingly incorporating aspects of holistic health into its own practice (Verhoef, Boon, & Mutasingwa, 2006). In addition, according to Baer (2001) many naturopathic practitioners that sell natural health products are in competition with pharmacies, which have expanded their sale of over-the-counter natural health products and supplements in past few years. Also, Verhoef, Boon, and Mutasingwa (2006) mention that other practitioners also use many of the single modalities practiced …show more content…

On the Career Cruising database according to a naturopathic doctor, Donna, the demand for naturopaths is on the rise, and there has been an increase in the amount of students graduating from naturopathic programs, this is making the job market more competitive (2015). Another naturopath, Richard says, there will be a visible increase in the demand for naturopathic doctors, due to the public’s growing interest in safe, preventive, and natural medicine, this may lead to changes in government health care coverage, more provinces may decide to include naturopathic medicine with conventional medicine (2015). He also adds that it is doubtful that there will be any extensive technological changes in this field (2015). However, according to Walden (2013), patients are demanding more web-based material, such as blogs and personal websites, as they are becoming more reliant on technology. Demand for technological advancement is a benefit as one naturopath, Jacqueline, says her site enables her to counter misconceptions that appear in the news media about her field (Walden, 2013). It is helpful in the sense that new media technology is changing the conception about alternative medicine, such as naturopathic

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