Amid a family doctor shortage in Canada, many naturopathic doctors position themselves as a solution, arguing that they have the training to be a patient's primary care provider. That's raising alarm among medical doctors and health experts.
Medical tools are pictured in an exam room at a health clinic in Calgary, Friday, July 14, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntoshVancouver naturopathic doctor Vanessa Lindsay has been treating a longtime patient's high blood pressure through nutrition and exercise.
The Canadian Association of Naturopathic Doctors wants to see the same scope of practice allowed for similarly trained practitioners across the country, said executive director Shawn O'Reilly. "We've got to be really careful," said Dr. Michelle Cohen, assistant professor of medicine at Queen's University and a physician on the Lakeview Family Health Team in Brighton, Ont.
"Their approach is to look at the whole person. So not just their physical aspects, but mental, emotional, social, environmental ," she said.Naturopathic doctors are regulated in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the Northwest Territories, O'Reilly said, and are in the process of becoming regulated in Nova Scotia.
And while naturopathic doctors must have at least 1,200 hours of clinical training, family doctors do closer to 10,000 hours, Cohen said. Some may also be uniquely qualified to provide science-based counselling on vaccines to people who are hesitant and may not trust the medical system, Cohen said, noting that naturopathic doctors took part in COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in Ontario.
"Now, I do fundamentally believe that primary care is a team sport. One hundred per cent. We should be working collectively with nurses, with nurse practitioners and pharmacists and psychologists and complementing each other's practice, not competing with it. But there is no place in there for naturopathic physicians," Bates said.Bates still remembers a patient from about 15 years ago who had rectal bleeding, so she referred her for diagnostic tests, including a colonoscopy.
"Much of naturopathy is based on the principle that modern medicine only treats symptoms rather than underlying cause, which is patently false other than when there is no effective treatment known to science," Murdoch said in an email. The question of whether these artificial intelligence-based chatbots are delivering a mental health service or are simply a new form of self-help is critical to the emerging digital health industry — and its survival.Kevin Bacon says he'll attend 'Footloose' high school's final prom
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