Naturopathic medicine, value of conferences

Connecticut Conference

Jacob Schor, ND, FABNO

I took great pleasure in attending a conference sponsored by the Connecticut Association of Naturopathic Doctors near the end of March. I’ve been making an effort to attend state and regional conferences over the past few years (British Columbia, Calgary, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and of course Colorado) in addition to the mainstays such as AANP and OncANP. The reasons why I make the effort to attend these far flung conferences are not easy to elucidate.
It’s not the continuing education. I typically have a surplus of CE hours when I fill out my Oregon license renewal each winter.  Nor, to be honest, do I find all the lecture topics all that interesting. Honestly, our profession’s best speakers don’t always make the effort to submit abstracts to state conferences. (I’m going to regret writing this because a long list of people who will take offense). Truth be told, I’m kind of ADD and have trouble sitting still during slow lectures, in particular ones that repeat things I can read in the Merck Manual. These smaller conferences aren’t where I expect to hear big new ideas.  These state local conferences serve our profession more as fundraisers; I have yet to see a state organization that is not struggling to pay lobbyist fees in the hope of advancing a legislative agenda. (Connecticut’s association under the competent lead of Dr. Liva is hoping to add prescribing privileges to their ND licensing law that has been on the books since 1926.) 

Personally, while I think these groups might be better served by buying a shredder and feeding it the money…the need for money does inspire us to organize conferences and that is certainly a worthwhile endeavor. That’s because these conferences remain vital to our profession.  Not because of the money raised.  Not because of their educational value; but for the sole reason that they allow us to see each other in person and be reminded that we’re part of a larger endeavor.  They reinforce our unique world view.

So many practice in isolated, small or even solo offices, it’s easy to forget exactly who and why we are.  Oh yes, some doctors work for our schools or live close by to these educational hubs but most of us are out there, on our own and alone.  Even in Connecticut, where NDs have been licensed and practicing legally since 1926, the average person on the street has no idea what a ND is or a naturopathic doctor does. Practicing in a state like Connecticut is still a lonely business.

Listening to our own colleagues speak helps contrast what we do and how we practice in comparison to other providers. It is not easy to define this exactly; in fact as I’ve pointed out in the past, we do not have a clear definition of naturopathic medicine. The “principles” that we list as a definition do not adequately delineate naturopathy from other schools of medicine. Quoting the line about non nocere doesn’t set our practices apart from those of a medical doctor. Employing unproven natural therapies shouldn’t necessarily lump us together with the ill-informed natural practitioners content with using pendulums as their sole diagnostic tool. What we do is rather unique; we practice something that our friend Tina Kaczor describes as “evidence informed natural medicine.” We do that without subscribing to cultish beliefs, relying on rational understandings of biology and general science.

And for the most part, we do this on our own. I have been fortunate on several occasions in recent years to find myself hospitalized and experiencing the best of modern medicine. I honestly doubt I would be writing this if it weren’t for the skills of teams of medical specialists. The important word here is “team.” In mainstream medicine it doesn’t seem like anyone works on their own. They are part of a practice, a team, a department. Not only are there providers but there are hierarchies of support staff; in the hospital each tier is assigned a differing color for their uniforms. Of course, as we all know, it’s the doctors (and now the PAs who get the white coats). I am not advocating that we naturopaths adopt this professional hierarchy that stratifies their workplace like something descended from the middle ages. What I want to point out is that these medical practitioners are not alone in their practice. They have support both emotionally in bearing the weight of patients undergoing tragedy but also support to strengthen their medical worldview. We don’t experience that sort of support day to day. My day-to-day existence is the opposite. Instead I find myself butting heads with medical oncologists who live in a very different paradigm than I do.

This is why I enjoy conferences. I get to sit next to people who share a world view that is closer to my own. Granted few would admit to being too mentally congruent with me. Let us say people who sort of share a similar world view. Nevertheless, that experience often comes as a relief, a respite from the day-to-day struggle. This is the value of attending conferences; it’s not the CE hours, nor the fundraising. It’s the comfort of shared belief in the power of nature.

Writing these words got me to dig through my computer’s hard drive to find a piece I wrote after Robert Timberlake passed away in 2008:

BLOCK QUOTE

The longer we engage in the daily work of this profession, the more it shapes us. We share similar routines, hone similar skills, taste similar herbs, and share similar frustrations and dreams. As if the power of nature, in drawing us along a common path, makes us its individual agents of healing and over time brings out certain common aspects in who we are. The longer we practice the more easily we recognize the resultant commonality in each other. The same current of life that drew us to this profession in the first place and that continues to draw us along year after year, draws us closer. What we have in common becomes more apparent with each passing year.¹

It is this commonality with conference attendees that makes attendance something I look forward to. It is the fact that we face similar challenges day after day in our work, that we seek amelioration for our patients from a similar armament of therapies, that we see the world as a place in which nature provides these agents of relief that leads me to feel at home.

The East coast conferences in particular are interesting to me as many of those colleagues out there do not journey west for the AANP conferences, and it’s been decades since I’ve seen some of these old friends. The opportunity to make new friends was certainly an unexpected delight that caught me off guard in Connecticut. Apparently, some people recognize my name and rather than airing unjustified grudges quickly become old friends. Perhaps that’s why I enjoy these smaller conferences; people don’t know me well enough to be offended by my attendance.

Not quite sure what to do with this joke? It was written like it was part of the text.

A friend who lives in the boondocks of Vermont asks me, “Why do you think we have so many family reunions in Vermont?”

“It’s a great way to meet girls.”