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Patients seek out naturopathic doctors

Thursday, February 22 at 5:12 PM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Dr. Paul Gannon, Aspen Naturopathic

This letter is in response to your editorial “Licenses a Bad Idea".

To start, I find your point of equating that “Hard cases make bad law,” very interesting. Perhaps you disagree with some of the very hardest cases this country has ever dealt with- desegregation and equal rights for one. I think most lawyers would have a field day arguing this ridiculously generalized and myopic phrase.

I would also like to point out, that in fact had there been licensing, that Brian O’Connell could never had posed himself as a naturopathic doctor. That is the whole point of licensing: regulating the profession.

A big part of that regulation comes from making sure that people are not misrepresenting themselves. When you seek out the services of an M.D., do you ever question if the doctors initials are real? I doubt it, and that is due to the success of state regulations. Someone like Brian O’Connell could not have hidden under a regulated licensed profession- well, not for long if he would have tried. He surely did not try to pose himself has an M.D., acupuncturist, or chiropractor. The ensuing death of Sean Flanagan is a direct result of deceit, and naturopathy is the cloak he hid under.

As for only 14 states licensing naturopathic doctors: each of these states has attained licensing due to the naturopathic doctors of those states working so hard to petition for licensing. These are no small feats when you think of the states involved: California, Washington, Oregon, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the rest. A state like North Dakota is not going to license naturopathic medicine if there are no naturopathic doctors there to accommodate the license and pay the licensing fees.

To also assume that consumers will confuse naturopaths with M.D.s is one of the most ignorant remarks of your editorial. I am a naturopathic doctor, and at no time whatsoever is any patient ever confused about such a matter- in fact, just the opposite: the consumer wants a choice in health care. Believe it or not, each and every patient seeks out my service because of what I do. This is not a matter of a smokescreen. This is not a competition with M.D.s. In my communities, I meet the M.D.s around me. We share patients often, and believe it or not, we refer to each other. This is not about a group of doctors wanting to be viewed as M.D.s. We offer very different medicines on purpose. Some patients prefer those that I offer, some those that the M.D. offers. Some are getting both and better for it. Not a single one of them is confused or misled..

Naturopathic doctors stand for an open dialog, open communication, and education to the patient and public at large.

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