Goals, Purpose, & Mission Statement

GOALS

We agreed on the following goal in our first meeting on February 5, 2010:

Our primary goal in establishing the present formal associations and to continue meeting in the future is to recognize and to strengthen and to expand a community of physicians who are in general agreement on naturopathic principles as applied to patient care, and to affirm those principles, which are listed as follows, as primary considerations in the care of our patients:

First do no harm.
Healing occurs by way of nature.
Treat the whole person.
Treat the cause.
Prevent disease.
Doctor as teacher

The following goal was adopted in our meeting of November 29, 2010, and amended in our board meeting of July 29, 2011:

The overall tendency in medicine in general, and in naturopathic medicine in particular, is to bend to political and malpractice insurance pressures, and to erode and restrict the scope of naturopathic practice to an increasingly narrow range of patients and treatment protocols.

In response to this tendency, our organizations are needed to uphold the necessary breadth in our professional practice, in accordance with the original intent and role of naturopathic medicine as a comprehensive system of medicine, designed to offer the maximum range of effective and safe treatments.

MISSION STATEMENTS

 The ANRI Mission Statement was adopted by the membership in our May 7, 2010 board meeting, and amended in our July 29, 2011 board meeting:

The American Naturopathic Research Institute (ANRI) and the IRB have been formed in order to explore and to conduct research on causes and treatments for chronic diseases, including but not limited to cancer, diseases of inflammation and disordered immune function and environmentally-caused illness. We have also come together in order to preserve naturopathic medicine, as practiced in all the diversity, synergy and comprehensiveness as it presently exists in the states with the broadest scope of practice, as well as to create the possibility of growth in ideas, research and treatment opportunities, in order to further expand the knowledge and capabilities of our profession.

 The Mission Statement for NORI was adopted by the membership in our May 7, 2010 board meeting, and amended in our July 29, 2011 board meeting:

The Naturopathic Oncology Research Institute (NORI) and the IRB has been formed in order to explore and to conduct research on treatments related to cancer, its causes and manifestations while striving for the greatest possible treatment choice, wellbeing, strengthening, education and empowerment of patients with cancer.

PURPOSE

In the May 20, 2011 quarterly meeting, Kenneth Proefrock, NMD, President of ANRI / NORI, reminded us of the following purpose of our organizations:

1. We are a forum of peers as well as public members dedicated to embracing the breadth of naturopathic medicine, including its many diverse practice modalities in a non-judgmental way.

2. The reason we have come together over a year ago to form these organizations is to re-affirm the standard of care in naturopathic medicine being based on the greater good of our patients’ need for the optimal treatment strategy for their health circumstances, and that this best treatment protocol for any given patient is most likely be found among a very broad scope of practice rather than one that is unnecessarily restricted.

3. We also recognize that two or more individual practitioners in the naturopathic community practicing in a particular way with regard to patient care, or as taught in a naturopathic school of medicine, are generally considered as adequate by NPBOMEX to establish such treatments as valid for ongoing study and practice.