IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v63y2006i2p409-417.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The scope of naturopathic medicine in Canada: An emerging profession

Author

Listed:
  • Verhoef, Marja J.
  • Boon, Heather s
  • Mutasingwa, Donatus R.

Abstract

In Canada, naturopathic medicine is an emerging profession that is gaining formal recognition, including provincial/territorial regulation. While naturopathic medicine has undergone significant growth and legitimization, it still faces substantial challenges to acceptance as a full-fledged health care profession within the Canadian health care system. For example, professionalization theories indicate the importance of clear professional boundaries as well as the need for 'new' groups to find a place in the system of professions. This has been problematic for naturopathic practitioners who continue to practice within a broad scope of practice that encompasses many different therapeutic modalities. Development of statutory regulation also requires delineation of a specific, well-defined scope of practice. The purpose of this study was to describe naturopathic practitioners' perception of their training and their current scope of practice. Two thirds (n=315) of all licensed Canadian naturopathic practitioners responded to the survey. The results showed that naturopathic practitioners are trained in, and practice, a wide range of therapeutic modalities and diagnostic procedures. Practitioners disagreed about their scope of practice, as 57% thought it was too restrictive, 31% felt it was about right and 13% thought it was too broad. A large majority felt there was some or a great deal of overlap with other practitioners' scope of practice. We conclude that multiple challenges are facing naturopathic medicine, including scope of practice, overlap with other professions, social closure, scarcity of vacancies and lack of cohesion. The future of naturopathic medicine will depend on how effectively the profession will use available strategies to overcome barriers to statutory self-regulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Verhoef, Marja J. & Boon, Heather s & Mutasingwa, Donatus R., 2006. "The scope of naturopathic medicine in Canada: An emerging profession," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 409-417, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:63:y:2006:i:2:p:409-417
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(06)00035-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baer, Hans A. & Jen, Cindy & Tanassi, Lucia M. & Tsia, Christopher & Wahbeh, Helen, 0. "The drive for professionalization in acupuncture: A preliminary view from the San Francisco Bay area," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 533-537, February.
    2. Gort, Elaine H. & Coburn, David, 1988. "Naturopathy in Canada: Changing relationships to medicine, chiropractic and the state," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 26(10), pages 1061-1072, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ijaz, Nadine, 2022. "The reluctant and the envious: Therapeutic subalternity and the practice of homeopathy in North America," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 311(C).
    2. Ijaz, Nadine & Welsh, Sandy & Boon, Heather, 2022. "Toward a ‘green allopathy’? Naturopathic paradigm and practice in Ontario, Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Volker Scheid, 2002. "Remodeling the Arsenal of Chinese Medicine: Shared Pasts, Alternative Futures," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 583(1), pages 136-159, September.
    2. Almeida, Joana & Gabe, Jonathan, 2016. "CAM within a field force of countervailing powers: The case of Portugal," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 73-81.
    3. Baer, Hans A., 2006. "The drive for legitimation in Australian naturopathy: Successes and dilemmas," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(7), pages 1771-1783, October.
    4. Green, Gill & Bradby, Hannah & Chan, Anita & Lee, Maggie, 2006. ""We are not completely Westernised": Dual medical systems and pathways to health care among Chinese migrant women in England," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(6), pages 1498-1509, March.
    5. Owens, Kellie, 2015. "Boundary objects in complementary and alternative medicine: Acupuncture vs. Christian Science," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 18-24.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:63:y:2006:i:2:p:409-417. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.