Individual Medicine

One of the challenges in naturopathic medicine is treating every person individually.  This entails pulling together treatment ideas and prescribed changes from a host of resources and, in some respects, I often feel like I am reinventing the wheel with each patient.  For the clinician, this is a recipe for a lot of work and at the end of the day, it can be difficult to separate the "office" from home life as the realization of this...

OSCE time of year again

I would not ever want to be in the third year's shoes during the OSCE's (Objective Structured Clinical Examination).  I can clearly remember my experience last year and seeing the faces of some of the people after their exams, I feel their pain!  (My post last year stated that it was almost fun, but even after a year of seeing patients, it would take a lot of adrenalin for it to feel fun).  One of my colleagues in 4th year took it...

CCNM Growing Pains

The fact that school at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine (CCNM) is very difficult is something I've written about several times before.  It has been argued by some students at CCNM (who have other medical degrees) that the diversity of material in the naturopathic program adds an additional challenge on top of the tremendous course load making it one of the most difficult medical programs.  Additionally, although CCNM is over...

From Green to Transparency

One of the most powerful agents for change happens each time we buy a product - we vote with our dollars by supporting companies.  Over the past year I have noticed an explosion in the number of companies vying for customers by jumping on the "green" bandwagon.  The increased awareness and urgency of environmental issues has created public pressure on companies to make more environmentally conscious products. But are they?Products in the...

Quote of the Month

"Human nature is about the only nature some people experience."Abigail Charl...