Indian Board of Alternative Medicine

Sorry to resurrect this thread, someone in Canada is asking me about this school. It seems that some provinces do not regulate natural medicine and naturopaths associations accept correspondence courses.
Has anyone used an IBAM degree in Canada in order to belong to a naturopath association? The price of IBAM degrees are very competitive, similar correspondence schools in Canada costs around 10K plus.

 

According to the National College of Natural Medicine, the following places license NDs:

Alaska, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Manitoba, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ontario, Oregon, Saskatchewan, Utah, Vermont, Washington and U.S. Territories: Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands

Elsewhere I see a reference to there being five Canadian provinces that license or regulate NDs. So, the list might be somewhat dated.

To start off, to get licensed in one of the provinces that licenses NDs, you'd need to take and pass the NPLEX. The eligibility requirements state that you can't even sit for the exam unless you went to one of these schools.

So, that's out. Now, before I go on, I want you to consider what the likelihood is that the ND powers that be, who are working vigorously to get other provinces and states to implement licensing for their profession (which will provide them with a form of legitimacy and potentially access to government and private insurer payments) will just let anyone from any old school walk into their association just because there exists no licensing in that province?

If anything, those associations have the most to lose by admitting people whose training they have not directly evaluated.

But, fine, let's see this through. If you go to the CADN website, you'll see that the requirements for membership in virtually any of the provincial associations require NPLEX scores which, you aren't getting unless you have a degree from one of their approved schools.

In summary, if you want to be a naturopath in a state or province that regulates the profession, go to a school that will qualify you for licensure. If you want to be a naturopath in a state or province that doesn't regulate the profession then do whatever you want. Get an unaccredited diploma mill degree from the school of your choosing. Just don't run afoul of the law by practicing medicine without a license (that must surely be a very fine line for naturopaths). Yeah, you'll be out of business if they ever do start licensing naturopaths in the future, but with only a few hundred bucks down the drain on your (even more) useless degree, you'll still be miles ahead of the naturopaths who are buried in enough debt to make a third tier law school graduate blush.

 

Based on these comments, I assume that an IBAM degree would be considered a joke. I checked and it seems that IBAM qualifies to practice natural medicine in India so I assumed that the degree had some value but your negative seem to tell otherwise.

What about a naturopath school in Europe? Would this carry more value because India or any other underdeveloped nation is not in the print of the degree? Some european schools are also cheap.

 

Here's a couple. I think Bastyr is OK. I'm not sure about the other.

http://www.newedenschoolofnaturalhealth.org/traditionalnaturopathy.htm

Bastyr University | Leading innovation in natural health education

 

another similar thing

https://www.achs.edu/

 

Thanks for these great options. I couldn't find anything wrong with IBAM, its ND is similar to the ones offered by some American schools:

Naturopathy School, Doctor Of Naturopathic | Natural Medicine Courses and Natural Medicine School Programs


I checked and a Canadian holistic college actually works with IBAM:
College Affiliations – Natural Medicine College

In Canada, many provinces just require naturopaths to be members of naturopath associations in order to be able to be insured and provide receipts.
It seems that IBAM might be able to do the trick in some provinces as the ND degree is not considered a University degree and granted by many private schools.
As most naturopaths are self employed, I don't think it matters much if you paid 2K for an Indian degree or got it online from a Canadian school at 20K as long as the Indian school provides similar education.
Perhaps IBAM is a degree mill but I haven't seen much evidence of this and for this reason my question.

Thanks again.

 

I've been searching for any exemption rule for foreign schools and I'm finding none. The naturopath associations and the handful of states and provinces licensing them have sort of closed ranks. According to their websites, you either earn a degree from one of their schools (all in the US or Canada) or you don't get in.

Maybe I'm missing a pathway in here but their language seems pretty absolute.

Keep in mind that the naturopaths are on a mission right now; get more jurisdictions to pass licensing laws in their favor. Until that happens, I would imagine they want to keep competition from "outsiders" (graduates of schools not founded by this relatively small group of people or accredited by the accrediting body founded by the same group) as is humanly possible.

Medicine has this process down pretty well. There is a guidebook, an exam for foreign trained physicians, a clear pathway outlined for all (even if pursuing that pathway isn't always bump free).

Naturopathy is new to the game, despite wanting everyone to think that they are really the original and unbroken chain of healers.

Keep in mind too that this space is getting awfully crowded by competing interests. So this degree might not hold water with naturopaths. But, NYS has a process in place for graduates of unaccredited chiropractic schools to potentially be licensed. It involves having the coursework evaluated by an accredited chiro school, filling in any missing coursework and taking an exam. I'm sure that if you started digging into acupuncturist/OM regulations you'll find all sorts of pathways for foreign trained practitioners.

So it doesn't appear to work for becoming a U.S. or Canadian ND. But is it completely worthless from a utility standpoint? Hard to say. Keep in mind that if you are in a jurisdiction that doesn't license NDs, then the association offers you little beyond marketing help. I'm sure there are some rival ND associations where more dubious credentials are commonplace. In those states/provinces, you need to not run afoul of the law. If you do, it doesn't matter if you have a fully accredited or a bogus degree. Practicing medicine without a license is illegal with either credential.

And new career options are popping up all over the place. Not too long ago we posted about the new college in Naprapathy which trains D.N.s who are licensed in only two U.S. states but who, like NDs are vigorously working to get licensed in other places as well.

It's a very odd landscape with a lot of crossovers and seeming contradictions. But until licensing becomes more the norm, it will remain the Wild West where people get away with a whole lot.