Alan Christianson, NMD
NDNR has become a central voice for our profession. As founding president of the Endocrinology Association of Naturopathic Physicians (EndoANP), it is my honor to share our story in this issue focused on endocrinology.
What is the EndoANP?
After numerous conversations with peers and mentors, the EndoANP was founded in October 2013. Our mission is to advance the practice of naturopathic endocrinology. This is important because our profession’s best means of advancement will come from maintaining our top-level expertise in natural medicine. Given the exploding rate of scientific knowledge, and with thousands of new articles published daily, it seems we can best stay abreast of new content by dividing our focus according to our natural areas of interest and sharing with others.
The EndoANP is a stable and viable organization boosted by a start that exceeded our lofty expectations. After achieving all membership and financial goals within the initial months of operation, we realized that this unprecedented growth has been a testimony to how welcome this topic is for our profession. It is also testimony to the dedicated efforts of our founding board members and executive director.
Despite the fact that we are a specialty organization, the majority of our members are general practitioners. Many of them are also active in other specialty groups besides our own. They have realized that training with those who have a great depth of knowledge will help them develop the most solid breadth of knowledge.
Eyes on the Future
Now that our operational base is robust and our systems are in place, we look forward to deepening our role in serving the profession. This year will bring more of our top-quality online continuing education (CE) events for our members, such as “Fertile over 40” with Jaclyn Chasse, ND, and “Sleep and Circadian Rhythms” with Lise Alschuler, ND.
We are especially excited to team up with the California Association of Naturopathic Physicians for our inaugural live event April 18 and 19, 2015, in Marina Del Ray, California. Non-members and members will be eligible for 10.5 CE credits within Naturopathic Endocrinology. In 2015, we also plan to continue our movement towards board certification for those who wish to deepen their expertise and publicly share their commitment to excellence in endocrinology.
Personal Comments
To me, the science of endocrinology and the wisdom of naturopathic philosophy seem to be perfect companions. It is within the delicate balance of the body’s hormones that are revealed to us our states of health or illness and the myriad ways that our diet, genes, environment, immunity, and emotions interact. It has also been apparent to me that naturopathic treatments often have much more to offer endocrine-based diseases than the more coarse tools of chemical pharmacology.
I want to personally thank the many of you who have already become active members. I would also like to personally invite those of you with an interest in endocrinology to join us and help guide us as we move forward. In this time of unprecedented growth in integrative, functional, holistic, traditional, or natural medicine; we are unique in that we come from an established legacy. This history gives us the responsibility of maintaining the core philosophy of naturopathic medicine and its applications to the medicine of technology. I look forward to more leadership and growth from our profession, including its generalists and specialists.
Join us and learn more at: www.endoanp.org or email endoanp@gmail.com.
