But what does that really mean?

“We’re doctors that use natural therapies,” said naturopathic physician Rachel Robertson of Port Orchard Natural Medicine.

Those natural therapies can include nutrition, counseling, the use of vitamins and other supplements, physical therapies, such as massage, and homeopathy — a method of treating disease with small amounts of remedies that, in large amounts in healthy people, would produce symptoms similar to those being treated.

This focus on natural therapies does not mean that anyone with a case of vitamins and a few jars of herbs can hang out their naturopathic physician shingle, however. Naturopathic physicians must be licensed in the state of Washington, and they must have graduated from an accredited, four-year naturopathic medicine program. Naturopathic physicians-to-be study standard medical curriculum, and also receive extensive training in clinical nutrition, acupuncture, homeopathic medicine, botanical medicine, psychology and counseling.

“Our education is pretty much the same as an MD,” said Dr Ruth Urand of the Sound Naturopathic Clinic in Poulsbo. “The big difference in education is that we have about 1,000 hours more education than MDs because we have to learn nutrition.”

“I love a lot of western medicine,” said Dr Katherine Barkshire of Bremerton’s Kitsap Clinic of Natural Medicine, “particularly for acute situations” such as a broken leg or heart attack. “But prevention has slipped away from western medicine. Naturopathic medicine is prevention.”

All three doctors emphasized that naturopathic medicine is focused on healing the whole person, not just relieving symptoms.

“If you just treat the symptoms you haven’t changed anything, you’re not healing” said Robertson. “We’re looking for health, not just the lack of symptoms.”

Because of this, naturopathic physicians spend significantly more time with their patients than most MDs do. A typical first visit with an ND will take between one and two hours and follow-up visits are normally 30 minutes long, or longer. A naturopathic physician will look at patients’ diet, as well as other emotional and lifestyle factors that may be affecting their health.

“We are truly holistic doctors,” said Urand. “We look at every aspect of our patients’ lives.”

“Like a western doctor I do treat symptoms,” said Barkshire, who worked for 19 years as a nurse before becoming an ND. But once the initial symptoms have been relieved, she continued, she then works with her patients on diet, nutrition and exercise to make more long-term changes.

“Naturopathic medicine focuses on teaching individuals how to take care of themselves,” she said.

Many naturopathic physicians focus on nutrition and diet as the primary method of helping their patients become truly healthy, and NDs spend a considerable amount of time counseling patients on ways to improve their diet, such as avoiding processed foods and relying as much as possible on whole foods and organic produce.

“Eighty percent of disease conditions are diet related,” said Urand.

In Washington, NDs are considered primary care physicians and they are able to provide the same level of care as a general practitioner in western medicine.

They can order clinical and laboratory diagnostic testing and x-rays, and they have some prescription-writing capabilities, such as for antibiotics.

And like a general practitioner, naturopathic physicians frequently refer their patients to western medicine specialists for treating diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease, which may require therapies outside of the NDs areas of expertise.

“Seeing a naturopath isn’t mutually exclusive to seeking western medical care,” said Robertson.

For example, said Barkshire, she would never recommend that a patient who required medication to stabilize extremely high blood pressure simply stop taking that medication. She would work with that patient to supplement their western treatment with the ultimate goal of getting that patient off the medicine. But there’s no absolute guarantee that would happen, she said.

“I don’t have a magic pill or a quick fix,” she said. “It takes hard work.”

All three NDs agree that acceptance of naturopathic practices among western medical doctors varies widely. To a certain extent, they believe, this is due to a lack of understanding about what naturopathy is within both the western medical community and the public at large.

“One thing this profession is not very good at is marketing itself,” said Urand. “I think that has to change.”

“Ideally I want to see a balance, with naturopathic physicians working with MDs to provide preventative health care,” said Barkshire. “NDs need to educate MDs as well. I want to work with the community really closely to give the best healthcare.”.