The inception has happened and ND's are now prescribing. My supervisors in the student clinic are now writing prescriptions to our patients. Doesn't this seem a little against our scope of practice? More importantly our Principles of Naturopathic Medicine states "First do no harm." Wouldn't medications do harm? It would if used out of context but there are moments medications are your #1 option.
There are more pros than cons with prescription rights. With this right, we are hoping to gain laboratory rights. Do you know how amazing it would be to have lab rights? For instance, if an ND thinks you are anemic, it will cost you as the patient to do a blood draw and send it to a lab. This is a free service through an MD. You can see how annoying this can be: ND’s sending their patients to MD’s in hopes they will agree to the lab that was requested. It’s frustrating for both parties.
What if you live in a remote community and you were given a prescription from a medical doctor you saw four hours away from your town? Just so happens the ND in your town can refill your prescription. Saved an 8hr round trip.
Another pro with prescribing rights is once you are in the care of a ND, they can work to eventually lower the dose of your medications. This will take a while and a lot of monitoring but there is the right to do so. If you have a choice to lower your medications, would you? A prime example is cholesterol lowering medication. There are natural and effective ways to do just the same thing. Plus it'll be cheaper. Sound kind of cool?
Now, you must be thinking, what kind of education do naturopaths have in pharmaceutical drugs? Do they even know how to prescribe? Its an interesting fact but as an ND, you prescribe things everyday. For example, we use herbs, which could be in a tincture form (extract good things out the herb with alcohol), tea, or topical application. When you make a tincture, every individual herb is extracted with higher or lower amounts of alcohol to herb. For instance, an herb can have 2parts of herbs to 1part alcohol. Or five parts herb to 1 part alcohol ect. Then, you take your herbs, say 5 different herbs, and put into one bottle. Now, you have to figure out how much of each herb you want based on the herb : alcohol ratio. From there, how much will you give to the patient per day and for how many weeks. Will the prescription be 1tsp three times a day or maybe 2tsp twice a day. How about supplements? Supplements can contradict with prescriptions (as can herbs), so you better be darn sure your supplement prescription doesn't decrease the effect or enhance the effect of the medication. How about Chinese medicine? Either prescribe Chinese herbs or create an acupuncture protocol. What acupuncture points will you use based on their symptom picture? Or chiropractic manipulation? The patient better be OK to have their spine adjusted. Think we do enough prescribing yet?
The act of prescribing medications isn't rocket science. The patient has a symptom, give them something to relieve them from the complaint. The scary part is you can prescribe the wrong drug or too much of a drug. Well, what about the literature that teaches us how to use meds? Maybe we could just use our resources if we are unsure. The beauty of an ND is we have the TIME to make a decision. We usually aren't in life threatening situations and need to make a decision in minutes. A good and accurate decision is made with a clear and calm head.
The education side comes from the exposure of medications throughout second year. We are again exposed to their function in third year. As of now, we will be taking a pharmacology course after we graduate, with an exam. The exam mimics the UBC medical school standards.
So is it still safe for ND's to use pharmaceuticals? You have someone that isn't rushed to make a decision about YOUR health. I think that answer is simple. Yes.
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