Joshua Rubinstein, ND, explains how naturopathic medicine programs blend science and natural care to prepare future doctors for whole-person health.

By Kim Smart

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Naturopathic medicine blends scientific training with natural, whole-person care to help patients address the root causes of illness.
• Strong naturopathic medicine programs combine rigorous coursework with extensive clinical experience to prepare students for licensure and practice.
• Graduates can pursue flexible careers in primary care, research, education, and integrative health settings.

Joshua Rubinstein, ND, associate dean of Clinical Education, Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine program at University of Western States, describes naturopathic medicine as a gentler form of medicine. “We’re excellent primary care providers,” he says. “We have so many tools and methods that, most of the time, are going to be gentler on the body. This can be especially helpful with patients’ long-term health goals.”

Naturopaths train on the foundations of health and in taking time to understand a patient’s diet, exercise habits, sleep patterns, and how they handle stress. When a patient makes changes in these areas, they often resolve many of their issues. Using both holistic practices and evidence-based research, naturopathic doctors connect emerging evidence with clinical practice, focusing on root causes of illness rather than just symptoms.

1. Why do future doctors choose naturopathic medicine over conventional medicine?

Naturopathic medicine attracts students who want to treat the whole person with natural, science-based primary care.

Naturopathic medicine is well suited for both doctors and patients looking for a more natural and individualized health care experience. “I think medicine, in general, aspires to treat the individual,” Dr. Rubinstein says,” but I feel like naturopathic medicine really excels at that, partly because we have so many different ways of working with that individual.”

“Naturopathic doctors have a comprehensive ability to address a problem, especially chronic conditions,” Dr. Rubinstein adds. “We have the training to put that primary care hat on.” An ND sees everyone from infants to the elderly with visits that are typically much longer than those in conventional medicine. This allows doctors and patients to develop a deeper and more trusted relationship.

2. What should prospective students look for in a top naturopathic medicine school or program?

Choose programs with expert faculty, strong clinical training, functional medicine, and accreditation.

Dr. Rubinstein recommends a program with instructors who’ve practiced naturopathy before, one that offers good clinical experience, and one that teaches students how to safely prescribe both botanicals and pharmaceuticals.

Learning functional medicine in naturopathy is also essential. “Functional medicine is woven into our naturopathy doctoral program, which sets our program apart from most.” Rubinstein explained. “Students learn to use evidence-based research to deliver specific protocols for a given condition. This gives our graduates confidence to go right into practice with the ability to address a wide variety of different concerns, knowing a protocol is backed by science.  Then, as they gain clinical experience, they can diversify and try varied approaches.”

Courses that focus on entrepreneurial and business practices are important for preparing you to have your own practice. And accreditation is essential for those who want to get licensed and practice as a naturopathic doctor. Dr. Rubinstein says UWS currently has candidacy status and hopes to take the last step in accreditation by the end of 2026.

3. How rigorous is naturopathic medical school, and what should students expect academically?

Expect a rigorous, science-based curriculum focused on anatomy, biology, chemistry, and clinical skills.

You should expect a naturopathic program to be rigorous, so a good science foundation will help prepare you. Admissions for naturopathic medicine tend to be similar across programs, typically requiring a completed bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution with a minimum GPA of 3.0 or higher, and specific prerequisite science courses like biology and chemistry with labs.

“I love to encourage folks to take anatomy before they come here as well, because gross anatomy is part of that first-year push,” Dr. Rubinstein says. “That background helps you start on the right foot, because it’s a lot of memorization and the more familiar you are with a topic like that, the easier it’s going to be.”

Skills and coursework needed for ND programs may vary from school to school, but at University of Western States, you’ll have courses in the following areas:

• Philosophy and principles of naturopathic medicine
• Basic sciences
• Foundations of functional medicine
• Clinical, physical and laboratory diagnosis
• Environmental medicine
• Therapeutic modalities including nutrition, botanical medicine, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, minor surgery, mind-body medicine, stress reduction therapies, injections and intravenous therapy and physical therapeutic procedures and modalities, including articular joint mobilization and manipulation, myofascial and soft tissue therapy.

4. How much clinical and hands-on experience will students get in a naturopathic medicine program?

Students complete more than 1,250 hours of supervised training with diverse patients in real clinics.

Anyone working toward a naturopathic medicine degree needs clinical experience, with an average of 1,100-1,200 hours of hands-on clinical training.

“Students get a lot of clinical experience here at [University of] Western States. We have a no-cost naturopathic medical clinic that allows us to see a wide diversity of income levels and people of different backgrounds who may not otherwise have access to naturopathic medicine,” Dr. Rubinstein says. “We also are in the process of establishing some different off-site clinical shifts that also will expand our ability to work with different communities in the greater Portland area.”

During your clinical rotations, you’ll see patients under the direction of a supervisor  who consults on your diagnoses and suggested treatment plans.

5. What skills and qualities help students succeed in naturopathic medicine?

Curiosity, empathy, organization, and communication skills drive success in naturopathic medicine.

Dr. Rubinstein mentions several indicators of success, starting with a strong academic background, especially in the sciences, and good organizational skills. “You have a tremendous amount of information to learn, so how do you effectively study it? How do you effectively organize the material so you can pull it up for reference later?”

You should also demonstrate a strong interest in natural medicine and possess qualities like empathy and curiosity. “A natural curiosity about the world and the body and how things work is essential,” he says. “Rather than just prescribing something, we really do aspire to understand the underlying physiology and the best ways we can help each patient.”

Good communication skills and a strong ability to connect with people are also important in naturopathic medicine. That’s because patient-centered care means you’ll be helping people feel safe and supported, as well as helping them clarify their objectives and goals.

“The best naturopaths are the ones who’ve been doing their own work on themselves, trying to figure out where their growing edge is,” he adds. “That’s because as you become more and more comfortable with yourself, you can be more present for your patient and really separate their issues from your own.”

Lastly, being comfortable promoting yourself and talking about naturopathic medicine goes a long way toward future success and happiness. “Those who succeed in their careers have a vision for how they want to practice,” he says.

6. What career paths and job opportunities can graduates pursue with a naturopathic medicine degree?

Graduates enter private practice, research, teaching, or public health with flexibility and independence.

The naturopathic doctor career path is wide and varied. “You really can chart your own path,” Dr. Rubinstein says. “Many of our graduates go into private practice, which allows you to determine how you practice, the hours you keep, and where you work. Those are all things you have a lot of freedom to decide for yourself.”

But there’s also much more beyond clinical practice. There are also academic roles, research, entrepreneurship, consulting, and public health, with positions in integrative clinics, hospitals, universities and various healthcare organizations.

“Part of what I love about it is that you’re never going to be bored in your career as a naturopathic doctor,” Dr. Rubinstein says. “There are always new modalities and ways to apply older ideas in a new and novel way, so you’ll never you’ll never run out of things to study and learn as a naturopathic doctor throughout your career.”

“I encourage all folks thinking about applying to our program to go talk to some practicing naturopathic doctors to hear what it’s like to be in practice and get some perspectives. And talk to more than one, because again, there’s a lot of diversity within our profression.” Then he added, “Go see a naturopathic doctor as a patient, too.”

Learn more about earning your naturopathic medicine degree

Ready to take the next step toward becoming a naturopathic doctor? Complete the short form below to connect with University of Western States and learn more about the Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine program. Discover how UWS combines evidence-based science and natural, whole-person care to prepare future doctors for licensure and meaningful careers in integrative health.

The CBCE program places students in internships and preceptorships that provide invaluable hands-on training and needed care to the communities they serve.

As is often the case with people who become chiropractors, Jessie Hrushka learned the value of the field as a patient. While studying nursing in college, she suffered a health issue that led her to seek a chiropractor’s care. “I was getting bad headaches in school and decided to go to a chiropractor,” Hrushka says. Having entered college looking to help others through health care, her positive experience with chiropractic led her to see the field as a potential path for herself. “I thought, ‘Oh, this is an option,’” she adds.

In addition to her experience as a patient, Hrushka encountered the chiropractic field as part of her nursing studies. “I was shadowing a chiropractor and loved it,” she says. Considering the field further, she realized that it aligned with her values as an aspiring health care practitioner. “I was interested in conservative care where I could help provide people with lasting results and not with pharmaceuticals,” she says.

Learning Through Practice

Ben Partridge, DC, a chiropractor Hrushka shadowed had received his degree from University of Western States. When it came time to apply to a chiropractic program, Hrushka was so sold on the UWS program that she never completed her applications to other schools. She says she chose the Portland program because it was more evidence-based than others she considered and because it focuses on the physical therapy and rehab aspects of chiropractic, not merely manipulation. “When I have my own practice one day, I would like to do a lot of the rehab and physical therapy and not just adjustments,” she says.

Hrushka secured her first internship through UWS’ Community-Based Clinical Education website. Looking for a practice near her family in Colorado Springs, she contacted Michael Macri, DC, of Evergreen Spine & Sports Medicine, who is participating in the CBCE program whom she had shadowed in the past.

“I really loved the way that he ran his practice,” Hrushka says. “They did a lot of physical therapy rehab, a lot of soft tissue as well as adjusting.” Additionally, Hrushka appreciated the scope of the practice, which included massage therapy, acupuncture, and a muscle relaxation technique called dry needling. “The literature says that the more modalities you use, the better results you get,” she says. After observing for her first week, she began performing adjustments. By the end of her internship, she was conducting most of the visit.

An Eye-Opening Journey

Having graduated from University of Western States in June 2025, Hrushka is currently completing her preceptorship at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Her experience in the VA system, which began in April and which runs through September, has been a stark contrast to her internship in Colorado Springs. The needs of the patients she sees now are much different than those she encountered during her internship, and the community she serves in Fayetteville faces a shortage of doctors.

Fayetteville is home to one of the highest concentrations of veterans in the country, so the chiropractic clinic is almost always at or over capacity, according to Hrushka. This makes it difficult for the two chiropractors on staff to see patients as often as would be best for their recovery. In addition, the VA’s patients are older, and most suffer from chronic pain, so their needs differ significantly from those of the young, healthy athletes Hrushka treated in Colorado Springs.

A typical day at the VA begins at 8:30 a.m. New patient visits begin with Hrushka taking a full patient history. “It’s the most thorough history ever,” she says. After this comes a physical exam and treatment. For follow-up visits, Hrushka asks patients how they have been since their last visit and, in addition to providing adjustments, Hrushka says, “We teach them exercises and stretches to do when they go home, because there’s such a long time in between visits.”

Takeaways for a Future of Service

The CBCE program offers students more than hands-on experience; it also provides flexibility in choosing internship locations, whether close to home or in areas where they hope to practice. This geographic flexibility is intentional, exposing students to varied patient demographics and regional health systems. As Patrick Battaglia, DC, assistant vice president of CBCE, explains, “In our community-based education program, students work with diverse populations, veterans, active-duty military, and Native populations. They’re exposed to a diversity of regions and health systems, big health systems like the VA and small private clinics. Students get a rich exposure across the diversity of the health care system that they will be operating in.”

For Hrushka, her experience in the CBCE program gave her a greater understanding of a chiropractor’s work as well as a grasp of how wide the patient experience can be, depending on the practice. Through the benefit of seeing a large number of patients, she gained confidence in diagnosing and treating people based on their varying needs. “In a sports clinic, if your population is all young, healthy people, you can make them feel fantastic and think, ‘Wow, I just healed this person,’” she says. “With other patients, it’s important to focus on, ‘I’m still helping them even if I can’t heal them 100%.’”

Looking ahead, Hrushka must take the fourth and last part of her board exam. She hopes to get licensed in Colorado and find a clinic to work for. “I am very passionate about the conservative care side of medicine,” she says. “It’s helpful to focus on what the patient can do for himself rather than going to a doctor every week for the rest of his life. I like to teach my patients the exercises and tools they can use for long-term relief.”

For more information on all programs at University of Western States, please fill out he form below.

Explore how UWS’s focus on whole-person health allows for a comprehensive approach toward patient care, considering all aspects of well-being including physical, mental, and social factors. Learn more about how we teach a whole-person approach for better overall patient care.

Whole-Person Approach to Patient Care

What is whole-person care? Whole-person care is a evidence-based and patient-centered approach, that evaluates the patient’s physical, mental, and social factors. The focus is to treat root causes of disease and dysfunction with holistic, individualized approaches to health and well-being. Teaching future medical professionals to consider the whole person in their evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, and patient management, not just suppressing symptoms. This approach factors in physical, mental, and social wellness to guide treatments and patient care management.

Patient-Centered Approach to Nutritional Wellness

Human nutrition is the provision of essential nutrients in food and the process of transforming it into body tissue and energy. Proper nutrition supports good health and bodily functions, whereas poor nutrition can weaken the body and immune system. Poor nutrition typically stems from poverty, food security, or a poor understanding or execution of meeting nutritional requirements for the body.

University of Western States offers a Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine program with a professional certificate, Master of Science, and a Doctor of Clinical Nutrition degree. Each program builds students’ knowledge on how to take a whole-person approach to nutrition by using ​​natural methods, specifically diet, lifestyle, and mental or emotional health as a central focus. UWS teaches this comprehensive understanding of whole-person consideration and evidence-driven data as a forefront model for health care practice that seeks to address the causes of disease, dysfunction, and poor nutrition rather than suppressing symptoms.

Patient-Centered Approach to Mental Health Wellness

Mental health is the emotional and psychological well-being of an individual. It influences how one thinks, feels, and acts. This is why it is important to understand a patient’s mental health and how it may affect their stress, and relationships, as it can hinder any healthy habits.

UWS reinforces the whole-person approach in all graduate degrees, including our Clinical Mental Health Counseling program. Our future mental health counselors learn to provide treatment to individuals, families, and couples for a range of mental health conditions that affect emotional health and relationships. CMHC graduates use a patient-centered approach to address concerns such as anxiety, depression, grief, low self-esteem, stress, and suicidal impulses. The methods and techniques for treating each condition are fully adapted to the individual—their life experience, lifestyle, current state of mind, and genetic factors that may contribute to mental illness.

Professional counselors use evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help people confront the challenges that keep them stuck and develop healthier patterns. This process can be both cathartic and emotional, and counselors are trained to respond to crises such as suicidal thoughts or vocational burnout with skill and compassion. In addition, professional counselors may support clients in building creative outlets that promote well-being, such as exercise, meditation, or other activities that foster expression and creativity. At UWS, our program is uniquely aligned with sport and performance psychology, giving graduates the added ability to support athletes, military and tactical personnel, and other high-achieving professionals in both their mental health and performance needs.

Whole-Person Approach to Social Wellness

Social wellness is the relationships and interactions between people. Maintaining social wellness can be done through spirituality, contemplative practices, and building healthy relationships. Spirituality can be practicing religion or faith and applying the values to real-life scenarios. Contemplative practices include self-reflection and analysis for deep concentration and quieting the mind during times of distress. The goal is to explore the cause and effect of one’s emotions and reactions, breaking it down into understanding, and processing the next steps rather than being overwhelmed. Contemplative practices are practical, radical, and transformative for self-awareness and can be achieved through therapy, meditation, or other reflective practices. Building healthy relationships is made easier through awareness, intention, and boundaries. All of which heavily rely on honesty with oneself and the other, trust, respect, and communication.

If a patient is struggling in one area of physical, mental, or social wellness, it can make it harder to maintain wellness in the other areas. This is why future medical professionals need to take into consideration the whole person, pinpointing the cause of a condition, rather than suppressing the symptoms.

Using a Patient-Centered Approach in Your Career

The University of Western States offers a variety of graduate programs in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine and Clinical Mental Health Counseling. We offer an accredited master’s degree in nutrition that combines holistic and integrative health. Start your journey as a future medical professional with a graduate degree that teaches a whole-person-health approach to patient care.