"Dear Anna (From Mike the exercise scientist) 

 I do understand the position that you are in and really do sympathize with the licensing problems that you guys have.  Again I have absolutely no doubt that you and most other Naturopathic physicians whole-heartedly believe what you are saying and are completely dedicated to the field and to the health of your patients. 

 With regard to scope of practice let me try to clarify.  It isn't Mike's law of ""scope of practice."" That is the law.  Your field must be completely distinguishable to be licensed by the standard of the law.  Medical doctors are licensed to diagnose, prescribe drugs, and perform surgery.  Their license specifically entitles them to that along with the responsibility for it.  In order for a person to diagnose, prescribe drugs, or perform surgery they must have this license.  This is exclusive to the license with the exception of NPs who can perform two of these functions under the supervision of someone with this license.  An ND would need to have this license to perform these functions.  This license has very specific requirements that NDs do not meet or else they would be licensed to do it just like DOs are.  That includes the undergrad requirements, an MCAT on file with the government, the gatekeeper tests, specific courses taught in a specific way (which is a requirement to become an accredited medical school), specific clinical training, and completion of a certified residency program.  Those are the requirements.  If you do not meet those requirements then you can not be licensed to perform ANY of the functions of a medical doctor.  The same is true for licensed allied health fields and as I mentioned TCM.  There are VERY specific requirements for all licensed fields.  My point about the scope of practice is that it cannot be in flux as you suggested and there is not a lot of crossover.  An MD cannot practice acupuncture unless licensed to do so.  It doesn't matter if the MD took all but one class from a TCM school and for all practical purposes could perform acupuncture.  The licenses are specific.  Here's an even better example.  Pharmacists are experts with medications.  Much more so than the MDs that prescribe the medications.  They are not licensed to prescribe medications.  Interestingly enough they are licensed to give advice on nutritional compounds including botanical medicines, vitamins, supplements, cleansing programs, OTC, or any other bioactive substance.  This is specific to their field.  While I was doing my undergrad I worked as a registered pharmacy tech.  From years of interest I knew more about nutritional supplements than any pharmacist I ever worked with but I was NOT allowed to recommend or give advice under any circumstance.  The point that I am trying to make is that the definition of naturopathy including the naturopathic physician's scope of practice is too broad to be licensed.  NDs would have the broadest licensing of any medical field if what you wanted to happen did.  That isn't going to fly.  There is no way the medical establishment is going to give you a license that entitles you to practice MD,RPh,cert diet,TCM,DC,and clinical psych along with some other completely unregulated fields.  I think that probably your best bet for licensing would be to try and be licensed like NPs are where you are licensed to practice under the supervision of a licensed MD or DO.  That could be the first step.  That situation also probably has the best chance of getting widespread approval.  The other possibility would be to narrow the scope to two or three things that you would be licensed to perform.  The problem with this is the crossover.  The two or three things would have to be unlicensed fields.  Like you could probably make a case for licensing doctors of botanical medicine.  There is a genuine need for this and there is no other licensed field covering this ground.  I'm sure you realize that a well thought out degree in this kind of field would be extremely challenging even with no other modalities in the program.  Even this program would require the training of an MD, RPh, and a PhD level botanist to have a chance.  NDs may be the best possibility to fill this void right now but I don't think that the education is really comprehensive enough to do it completely honestly.  There is simply too much that we don't know about these substances.  That in fact brings up a whole other problem.  What about the possibility of botanical substances being researched and then the FDA reclassifying them as drugs.  I think that this is part of the concern that the unlicensed naturopaths have.  Regulation could lead to further regulation.  Research could also lead to regulation.  This is all very shaky ground for the future.  

 Just to clarify I went to Bastyr and SCNM.  I decided not to interview at NCNM.  Bastyr was clearly superior to the other two but still not on par with medical school.  The p