VOLUME 14 • NUMBER 1
	From the Editor Departmental News & Notes Curriculum Development Report Promoting the Profession Membership Spotlight Educational Travel 2007 Setting a New Standard The Findhorn Foundation and Community Groesbeck Parham, M.D., A Member of the Global Community Abstract Reality 2007 Scholarship Recipients ClassNotes CCNH’s 1st Doctor of Philosophy in Traditional Naturopathy Graduate Graduates: Fourth Quarter 2006 Health in the News End Notes Archive Page

Setting a New Standard
Natural Health Distance Education with Natural Standard^©

CCNH is committed to setting the standard in the world of natural health distance education, and in keeping with that commitment we are thrilled to announce the recent addition of the Natural Standard^© database as a resource for all CCNH students and graduates. The Natural Standard^© database is the library resource used by leading universities in the United States including Harvard, Duke, Yale, and Stanford, to help practitioners, clinicians, and consumers make informed decisions on the safety and efficacy of herbs, supplements, vitamins, diets, nutrition, exercise, and complementary practices.

The Natural Standard^© database is an international research collaboration that synthesizes data on complementary and alternative therapies. It uses a comprehensive methodology and reproducible grading scales to offer research information that is evidence-based, consensus-based, and peer-reviewed. Natural Standard^© is widely recognized as one of the world’s premier sources of information in this area, providing CCNH students and graduates with the following services:

• Herb and supplement monographs;
• A complementary practice library complete with scientific analysis on the data for or against the use of specific alternative therapies;
• Complete complementary and alternative therapies dictionary;
• Drug/Herb/Food/Nutrient interactions database;
• Practitioner database: Listing of alternative therapy practitioners with specialties and certifications, full contact information. (Natural Standard^© does not recommend specific therapists — all areas of the database are purely informational.);
• Current news in the realm of natural health and alternative medicine; and
• Live, print, and on-line educational materials for use in client education.

Educational Language and Natural Standard^©

Natural Standard^© is an excellent resource for information about complementary and alternative therapies. The information accessed through this comprehensive database is vitally important to a student of healing arts. Additionally, such information is almost always expressed in diagnostic and prescriptive language, the language of allopathic medicine. Terms such as “patient” and “treatment” are good examples of this language. At CCNH, students and graduates must stay within the parameters of teaching health, not treating disease; therefore, they must use educational language when communicating information to others.

Also, note that the information accessed through Natural Standard^© often includes the title “naturopath” and the designation of “N.D.” These references typically refer to the practice of naturopathic medicine. Since many students and graduates of CCNH may refer to themselves as naturopaths or use the “N.D.” designation, recognizing this distinction is critical to understanding and interpreting the information retrieved from this source.