How accepted is Naturopathic medicine?

[Anon28]

A friend of mine just told me that he is going to grad school to study naturopathic medicine. How well accepted is it?

[Lightning]

Not very. Its improving but has a long way to go.
For some reason allopaths feel that they have exclusive rights to healthcare and do whatever they can to ensure other modalities don't grow by dicrediting the studies done as unscientific even though allopathic studies and testing is sponsered by the people who make the drugs.

This would end if a truely independent body was set up to test all healthcare products which all manufacturers had to pay into. Naturopathy and other therapies would then get the independent testing that everyone wants.

[Alex F]

It really depends on the area (ie. in arizona naturopaths have as much power as MDs, while in certain states they aren't even allowed to be liscened to practice). By the same token, some crowds hate the practice others like it.
I personally think the real naturopath schools (there are only 6 of them) are pretty good, and give you a high quality medical education. I originally wanted to become a doctore but abandoned the path after I saw all the problems in modern medicine (and the way the schools are run), but naturopathy seemed really cool to me, and I'm considering going to one.
Outside of the US, naturopathy tends to be more accepted, and many of the practices they do here are considered obvious and self evident.

[doctrine-mouse]

It really does depend on the country you live in. Some are close and some very open to naturopathy. The worst are probably Australia and the USA. The best is Germany, Sweden and England.

[John C]

Not much on the mainsream, but like Traditional Chinese Medicine TCM, it has a devout following. They look at cause and effect differently and react in a different way than "traditional" medicine. I personally find it fascinating, but others dismiss it as "heresy".

[breakfast of champions]

If he accepts it then I guess its pretty acceptable.