Choosing a Natural Medicine School
A Good Education in Alternative Health... Has Too Many Alternatives!
Colleges and other programs for the study of holistic health and healing can vary in credibility, quality of education, and their treatment approach and philosophy.
From small, personalized energy work courses to accredited naturopathic and homeopathic colleges, the amount of educational choice available in alternative medicine has never been so wide. Read on for some suggestions for assessing a school of holistic healing for its credibility, health care philosophies, and the quality and type of education.
What is Accreditation, and Why Does it Matter?
One of the first questions in assessing any large-scale school of natural healing is whether or not it is accredited.
Selection by an accreditation group means that a school has been investigated and has been deemed to provide a quality education that combines natural health care with scientific principals and balances the strengths and weaknesses of naturopathic and allopathic medicine.
In North America, for instance, there are only six schools accredited by the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME), the body which assesses U.S. and Canadian naturopathic colleges. Naturopathic doctors who have graduated from one of these schools’ four-year programs are licensed to diagnose disease and prescribe treatments (including pharmaceutical drugs) in many states, comparable to a medical doctor.
Other accreditations include those for schools of aromatherapy, homeopathy, and massage therapy. There are over 17,500 specialized accreditation programs (across all industries) in the U.S. alone.
Not everyone is primarily concerned with a school’s accreditation. Some excellent programs in alternative medicine will never be large enough or, in the case of energy healing, quantifiable enough to have accreditation. Others choose to break out of the mainstream mold by developing their own terms for certification, such as DNM (“Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine” or “Doctor of Natural Medicine”) programs.
Benefits and Disadvantages of Distance Education
Many schools offer distance education programs in holistic healing. Such programs allow a student to conduct studies on their own time, without the pressure of a regular class schedule.
Distance students, however, lose the opportunity to discuss material with classmates or ask questions of an instructor face to face. Some find it challenging to learn from a course composed entirely of written material, or maintaining the necessary self-directed discipline, and give up before they have completed a degree.
It can be a challenge to apply knowledge about hands-on treatment approaches that was learned from a book or distance course (imagine studying medicine by correspondence!). Reputable distance education schools may offer an internship or intensive period of class study to compensate.
A School’s Philosophy
One of the most important factors in choosing a program at which a student may spend thousands of dollars and two to four (or more) years of their life is determining a comfort zone with a school’s learning approaches, philosophies, and depth and breadth of study on particular subjects.
What’s important to you?
- amounts and types of multimedia used in education
- a school’s philosophies or the “party line” with respect to modern allopathic medicine, traditional models of health (Native American, Ayurvedic, TCM), and energy work
- how much emphasis is given to a favorite subject area
- how intensive a program of study
- on-site facilities
- the integrity of the school, students, and instructors
Factors like these make all the difference in whether a student learns what they hoped to and whether they enjoy their time at a given school.
Information on such issues can be learned by observing the campus and by asking questions of instructors, the administration, and former students. The latter will often give the most accurate impression of what studying there is really like... and what you will have learned at the end of it.
