Meet & Greet: Lauren Noel

Photo by hiddedevries.

Welcome to our new column! In Meet & Greet, we’ll be interviewing a different star student from a naturopathic medical school each month so you can meet the future of health care.

Naturopathic medical school is a four-year program that requires a bachelor’s degree and science pre-requisites. Not all states are licensed for a Naturopathic Physician, however, the movement is underway and alternative medicine is rapidly growing in popularity. In fact, a recent study showed that 84% of conventional medical students want more education in this subject. Our first student is the vibrant, go-getter Lauren Noel. We met Lauren two years ago. She is poised to really propel naturopathic medicine into the forefront of health!

Student: Lauren Noel
City: Longmont, CO and Chatsworth, CA
School: National College of Natural Medicine, Portland, Oregon
Year in School: Fourth, graduates in June 2010

WW: Hi Lauren! Thanks for meeting with me to talk about my favorite subject, naturopathic medicine. First, give our readers an idea of what your daily life is like.

Lauren Noel: My day is a mix of classes and clinical rotations. I get up between 5 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. and hit the gym. Then I’m at my first class by 7:30 a.m. until about noon or 1:30 p.m. where I have clinicals until 7 p.m. Then I head home, eat dinner, study, and get in bed by 9 or 10. On weekends I attend conferences such as ACAM (American College for Advancement in Medicine), bio-identical hormone lectures, IV therapy, or I do public speaking on nutrition or botanical medicine. In fact, I just gave a lecture to the medical students and doctors up at Oregon Health Sciences University.

WW: How did you first get into naturopathic medicine?

LN: Initially I wanted a field that used food as medicine. I did my undergrad in California in Health Psychology. I took a nutrition class that blew my mind and I knew I wanted to learn more. I did an Internet search for advanced programs and found a double masters at the Seattle naturopathic school, Bastyr, then I read about naturopathic medicine and knew it was for me. I hadn’t done any of my pre-requisites so I spent two and a half years completing those while working at an integrative center in Colorado with an N.D and M.D. A friend of mine saw an N.D. for Crohn’s disease and their life totally changed around. It was amazing. I chose NCNM because I knew it was an instant fit. I fell in love with the community, the school, and the city.

WW: What areas are you focusing on in school?

LN: Nutrition is my passion as is exercise health, environmental medicine, gastrointestinal health, and hormonal balance.

WW: What excites you most about the day-to-day in all this schooling?

LN: Definitely being in clinic and working with patients. Seeing patient’s lives changing left and right is not a rare thing at all. Patients get better with our medicine–even patients with very serious conditions. It’s all very inspiring.

WW: If you had the power to change one thing about the industry, what would you change?

LN: I feel there is absolutely no reason naturopathic medicine isn’t mainstream and it’s essential we are for health care reform. The fact that the top causes of disease are completely preventable blows my mind because that’s what we, as naturopathic physicians, absolutely shine at. We are critical to prevention medicine–it’s what we do, it’s how we are trained. We can remain true to the roots of our medicine while being integrative. We can focus on true health.

WW: Lauren, where do you see yourself in five years?

LN: It’s a difficult answer because of location. I’m not sure what state I’m going to practice in but I know I will be in an integrative medical facility. I am very comfortable working with other practitioners like M.D.s or D.O.s (Osteopathic doctors). I really shine in that environment and want to share knowledge. I also have a huge passion to get our medicine out into the public and I would love to get into the media aspect of it.

Dr. Carrie Jones has practices in Tigard and Sherwood, Oregon where she focuses in all aspects of women's health. She is an adjunct professor at the National College of Natural Medicine, and writes and speaks regularly on the subject of women's medicine.