Why I chose to be a Naturopathic Doctor and NOT a Medical Doctor

It's the awesome Sara WOOHOO

Love it!

Hey Sarah, I apologize if you’ve been asked this question loads of times already, but when making the decision to go to naturopathic doctor school, did you receive support from colleagues friends and family ? If not, how did you manage that? ✨ Also thanks for another awesome video !!

🎉 Go Naturopathic Doctors!!! 🥼 🪴

Why not do MD and spend more time with patients or capture patient's full story? You can do all of what you want as an MD, but at the expense of certain levels of profit (which is fine, since that's not your motivation). The benefit is access to a more rigorous and interdisciplinary care team and training.

I think a good health plan for an individual is to have an ND and an MD. May I ask doc, are you of Korean descent?

Can’t wait for more videos!! ❤

Wow.. such a well done video! Thank you for doing this❤

I am in medical school to become a MD. However, I have decided I want to become a ND.

Which school did you attend Sarah ? Lovely video— I personally love naturopathic doctors because of that the profession stands for.

My only issue with becoming an ND, is insurance companies don’t pay for it so I worry I’m gatkeeping health from people who need it most

Can I shadow you? I’m having issues shadowing one cause they don’t allow it

What mcat score do you need to become an ND

I love and miss your videos! Please post more <3

What a way to say you couldnt get into medical school.
-A nurse practitioner

Hey doc, is it possible to work a part-time job while studying in a naturopathic medical school?

A good healer has a wide variety of tools for healing...🎉🎉

Yey! ❤ go ND!

Certified specialist sports nutrition my wife has stage 4 pancreas liver cancer coping day by day

I want to find the cause and heal it rather than just treat symptoms!

I’m an MD and doing fellowship in integrative medicine

The majority of the points you bring up about medicine are very true. However rather than people needing to become NDs, or any particular degree over MD for the reasons you listed makes no sense. How a doctor practices medicine is largely up to them (especially after residency, and what specalty they pursue). The naturopathic doctor degree and subsequent licensing appears to rotate around evidence based medicine practiced by the majority of healthcare workers, however a large subset is quakery and is possibly dangerous. I believe the more "natural" parts of naturopathic medicine that are safe, are great to apply to everyday medicine, but instead of being a degree, it should be an MD specialty. Controversially I would also argue the same about dentistry, and podiatry needing to be specialtys within medicine (largely to integrate all aspects of medicine, and patient care for the medical student). I would probably group ND with DC, chiropractors practice a certain percentage of evidence based procedures and treatments, but a large subset are not evidence based.

You can’t even prescribe medication. People are crazy these days. I don’t understand why go back in time where life expectancy was 45 years. But, hey, I guess the planet is crowed, so, go for it. 😂

Is this “Functional Medicine” ? Root cause based ? Thanks

Hi, the vitriolic comments that you are a dangerous “snake oil” charlatan by those in the medical profession is indicative of the mainstream system to discredit anything not under there control. Stay strong and courageous! These forces want to “burn witches at the stake” !

Will make this short n sweet: you took the right decision.. The points mentioned here, actually make a large difference to the way healthcare is managed in Naturopathy, and the results, over time, prove themselves

Too me appointment use to be like this when I was a kid and early 20s. Nowadays i have no clue what is going on.

I respect ND and what they can offer in alternative medicine. I think that if ND had the ability to practice family medicine in more states it could (potentially) decrease the price of healthcare.

That being said, I think it's important to acknowledge that Integrative and Functional Medicine does the same thing. I see a Family Nurse Practitioner who works in Integrative Medicine and the clinic approach is holistic healthcare (including chiro and acupuncture (although I have my doubts about Chiropractors)). I prefer the Nursing model to the MD model because it's about understanding the root cause of ones illness and not just treating the illness itself. I've also have gotten significantly better care from NP than MD in my experience but I think that is solely based on the person and not necessarily the profession.

ND have an uphill battle to overcome as a profession.

1. Insurance will not cover ND visits so patients must pay out of pocket ($$$)
2. ND's must continue to fight the MD lobbyist to gain recognition and access to practice healthcare (Same issues that PA and NP, although NP are allowed to practice independently in 27 states)
3. Limited # ND schools and state accreditation
4. Lack of recognition from population (including healthcare professionals)
5. There are other specialties in medicine that offers similar approaches in holistic medicine
6. Holistic approach has its limits and medication is sometimes the only/best option for treatment. Since the ND model is not pharmaceutical based, you ability to treat patients becomes difficult as their health deteriorates or becomes more complicated
7. Lack of evidence based research that herbal medicine actually does what it claims

I wish the ND professional best of luck in it's journey to gain state accreditation. I think there is a place for it in healthcare but only in family medicine.

Wow, I’m amazed at how much time you get to spend with patients! It’s a shame that there’s a branching off in how a patient is treated. You would think that it would be automatic to care holistically for the patient. I mean unless we were talking about urgent care I guess. How sad

I understand your reasoning for becoming a ND and I see you’re in CanadaLand, if you would’ve been in the US I think you would’ve liked D.O education. You get the whole system approach, nutrition, and non-medicine/surgery intervention.

You are spot on with your reasoning that some patients want a quick fix and others don’t understand that eating their weight in trans fats probably isn’t the best thing for your brain.

I'm copying my comment to ​@MG-mw5cc here, because i want others like me to hear my story: you are not alone; sometimes it is NOT all in your head; "The body keeps the score" (Bessel van der Kolk). My personal experience: regular MDs literally almost killed me multiple times over the summer for not treating my body holistically, and instead like a bag of systems, which is not how the body works. I have SIBO, gastroparesis, chronic lyme, mycotoxin poisoning, MCAS, PoTs, and nonceliac gluten allergy (which has a huge psychiatric component that no one discusses in conventional medicine). I was untreated; then improperly treated with psych meds which almost killed me and literally almost ruined my relationships in my life; and then the regular docs, when I finally quit my job and tried to get help, told me I was crazy. I had an ER doc stick a finger in her mouth and mimic vomiting, and then told me her white blood cell counts would be high too if she was making herself puke and causing her own stress. The GI doc gave me Ibgard (menthol) which literally stopped the smooth muscle contractions in my small intestine (blocks Ca+ channels) and almost killed me, that along with the Prilosec after my colonoscopy that also almost killed me. MDs quite literally do not have the training to properly diagnose any of these diseases or treat them, and especially not when they are together, as the entourage effect of symptoms present differently than when they are alone - some thing that MDs are 100% NOT trained to recognize. The ND in my life is the one that saved me, the one that thinks biomechanically, that actually CRITICALLY THINKS about how all of these processes work in concert, and not as separate systems, the one that actually took the "hours" to learn my whole life history - no psychiatrist or other MD in my life has ever done that, and I've seen many. Though I appreciated the fact that this person wants things to be science based, it's clear that they don't understand that naturopathic doctors DO practice science, in fact, they are the only docs that do, MDs do not - source: I have a PhD in analytical chemistry and am frequently frustrated by MDs inability to critically think beyond their very narrow training or outside of their "specialty" (FYI, no scientist on Earth 'sticks' only to their specialty, we couldn't do our jobs otherwise). Yes, modern medicine is excellent for treating IMMEDIATE acute trauma, i.e., I'm going to die in the next few minutes if we don't do something. But, long term health and QUALITY of life? They do not do that. It is clear they do not actually have experience being sick in the modern medical system. Psychiatrists on the whole do not spend that kind of time, that is ridiculous, unless you are rich and have thousands of dollars to spend on a private practice. Their comment is an affront to chronically ill people.

I absolutely agree with you.
I always get annoyed when MDs tell me try to summarise and I like to take my time telling the details of my story, because I believe every detail can lead the doctor to unpuzzle the riddle of my illness.
Well done keep up what you're doing, Sarah!

Great content…thank u. 🙏🏼

As an actual MD, getting into a medical is unbelievably difficult as anyone knows. Nutrition is incorporated over biochemistry, surgery, and internal medicine rotations treating actual patients. Getting through such classes and rotations is extremely hard. Also extremely hard is the 3 medical licensing exams to become a real doctor. Nutrition is also reinforced through a 4-7yr residency, staying up all hours of the day and night and actually treating patients who all need nutrition to survive. MDs are the cream of our medical system. If you go to any major University Hospital in America, those are all institutions that have a medical school that grant an MD degree, and you will be seen by an MD. MD institutions select only the best applicants with the highest grades, MCAT scores, and everything being equal, as I've met in my colleagues, Olympic gold medalists, and a Navy SEAL. The best of the best. That is how they became an MD. The best residency training programs for doctors in America take first, United States MD graduates who have graduated at the top of their classes called 'AOA' or Alpha Omega Alpha. They can actually examine you correctly, and order appropriate medicine or tests to treat a patient appropriately. If you had atrial fibrillation with a rapid ventricular response in the Emergency Department they will most likely give you Dlitiazem to bring your heart down to a safe beats/minute and the correct dose, so you can live and not give you a neck manipulation or herbs so you would die. For your health, please trust a Doctor of Medicine an "MD" , with your medical needs.

Not good enough grades,cheaper+shorter education and easy to leverage in to money would be my guess?

I had these same concerns but figured it was practice dependent, ive seen good clinics and bad ones, like what you described. Plus, as an MD i can incorporate ND ideologies into my practice, but not vice versa.

These guys claim to be different yet want to be called the same thing. That is suspicious right there. Any M.D. can be a natural doctor but no natural doctor is a M.D that’s the difference.

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you didnt want to go back to school for 4 years to finish GP and then an additional 3 - 4 to specialize in an area that you love totalling 10 - 12 years. 4 years came up and you said the hell with that lol. Nurses have a more important job than a naturpath and they have to go to school the same amount as you and bust theyr ass way more than you which makes a huge difference to society but you are a quitter and you wasted mommy and daddys money coming up with an excuse that justifies wyy you failed them.

yes i do agree to that. i have follow a hollstic dr for many years. I love dr axe his approach is great. I have study healthcare economics. i love the course, and I hate the way the hospitals and clinics don't have enough personal connect.

I think MDs can choose to also take their time this is done in a concierge doctor I am seeing a private pay doctor who takes 2 hours for a consults. It’s expensive but he also left the traditional medicine and combined it with eastern medicine. He takes an alternative approach at treating symptoms and can use both traditional and alternative but it was a tremendous investment. I am glad I found him but it’s a luxury not accesible to many. He does not take insurance but you can submit your payment to your out of network benefits because he is an MD. Anyways I have seen some MDs who do this go private pay only and do functional medicine deeper knowledge on the side.

You are a blessing to mankind! Such an inspiration and great example

I would love to see more Dr like her in the US. Looking at the root problem is so important.

The medical/insurance/pharmaceutical/food system in this country appears, unconsciously or not, to be implementing a type of planned obsolescence on patient care. Foods that create health problems that only insurance-approved health providers can treat with pharmaceuticals that temporarily mask symptoms while leading to the worsening of underlying issues... Rinse, repeat, and make record-breaking profits off a record-breaking decline in the health of the population. The mainstream food, drug, and medical system is so broken, I don't blame anyone with the desire to really help people for going into alternative medicine.