by Tutti Gould, ND

Dr. Pamela Snider is the kind of friend everyone wants to have. She is right there by your side to celebrate accomplishments, offering comfort and direction in times of trouble, and providing honest words of wisdom when no one else dares. She is able to transform this feeling of trust, loyalty, love and leadership into every role she has played in life, as a mother, teacher, naturopathic physician, business woman/entrepreneur, associate dean, political advisor, senior editor and visionary. All of Dr. Snider's efforts have been team accomplishments. Her success and satisfaction strategy involves bringing together the best people she can find globally to help create profound changes in the world of natural medicine - whether it's in business, defining naturopathic medicine, and most recently in the editing of a major textbook in naturopathic medicine. I had the privilege of working with her in 1990, when we co-founded the Canadian division of Standard Homeopathic Company. Once it was incorporated and the infrastructure in place, Dr. Snider decided to leave the business world to focus her attention in the academic field of naturopathic medicine in Washington State.

We learn from our parents, whether we like it or not. The young Pamela Snider would never have admitted it as a college student, but she was greatly influenced by her father and mother in choosing homeopathy and naturopathic medicine as her life's mission. While she was growing up, she witnessed the family turn from an unhealthy lifestyle to one consisting of organic foods, vitamins, raw milk, as well as homeopathy. "My mother had discovered homeopathy, and she was quite a wonderful prescriber," says the 51-year-old. "She made a decision to stop bringing us to conventional physicians if there was a homeopathic remedy. And I noticed that my mother's treatments worked better!" Snider says, herself a mother of two.

As a restless and idealist college student however, Snider explored different avenues before returning to her parent's influence. "After I left home and went to college, I explored a group of majors including spirituality and education, and psychology. I tried becoming a teacher, a solar science researcher, a midwife, and then I went into naturopathic medicine," she says. She graduated from Bastyr University as a naturopathic doctor in 1982. Of course, homeopathic medicine was one of the modalities in her training, but she wanted to deepen her knowledge, and so trained at the Canadian Academy of Homeopathy for two years after that.

Dr. Snider was lucky to get direct mentorship with an experienced homeopath: for two years she worked closely with Dr. John Bastyr himself, calling him at the end of every practice day. "I brought all of my hard questions to him," she says. "He often recommended remedies, and I gained my confidence through that mentorship." She was inspired by his deep practice of homeopathy - as he would use remedies all day long for his patients - as well as his extensive knowledge. "This man had a photographic memory, not only of Boericke, but of many other materia medica; he could tell you what page a symptom was on. He would say 'Of course you know that on page 325 of Boericke, Rumex has this symptom', and you'd say 'Of course!'" Dr. Bastyr taught her a rich understanding of the importance of comparative materia medica and to see the full discipline of homeopathy.

Dr. Snider kept a practice for six years and was then involved in many projects and received many honours - too many to mention here. Her latest and most ambitious project is to codify the planet's knowledge in naturopathic medicine. "The Foundations of Naturopathic Medicine Project is an international textbook project with authors and contributors from six different countries," she says, adding that it's academic home is National College of Natural Medicine, the USA's oldest naturopathic college, and many elders in the field are working closely on the book, of which she is executive editor. "It's a medical textbook, and a compendium; the first international textbook of naturopathic medicine." It begins with the philosophy of naturopathy, with its healing principles, doctrines and laws, and then moves to the clinical and practical applications of that philosophy, such as nature cure, primary care, the clinical systems, the different modalities, such as, Homeopathy, Nutrition, Botanical and medicine.

The book is divided into 5 parts:
1) The introduction to the profession of naturopathic medicine.
2) The history and the philosophy.
3) The clinical applications of that philosophy in case management, clinical decision-making and algorithms.
4) The science and philosophy, what are the implications of research to understanding health and healing.
5) And finally, creating a healthy world, which is implicit in naturopathic medicine.

Obviously, the task of codifying thousands of years of accumulated knowledge from around the world is not an easy affair, as everyone has their viewpoint, and this is precisely what excites Dr. Snider. "You look around as to who is attracted to naturopathic medicine and what you find is a lot of diverse, independent thinkers. They want to be physicians, but see that mainstream solutions aren't really fixing the problems, so they pursue a different field. Typically they are activists, they typically think independently, and they typically have really diverse opinions. Yet the field has a distinct identity and it's been my belief that we do have powerfully unifying foundations." She says that this diversity of thought and the independent thinking is precisely the strength of naturopathic medicine, because it keeps the practitioners curious and open, and not stuck in dogma, so that they may discover new ways of practicing. As she says: "As long as there are health care problems, you want people who value independent thinking." Dr. Snider sees the foundation of naturopathic practice in the incredible unity in the field, and part of that unity is the respect for - and value of - diverse thinking, "which is a paradox, but which is perfect."

Although Dr. Snider values and respects all the modalities of naturopathic medicine, she is very excited about the future of homeopathy. Because resistant microbe strains are increasing, and drugs are harder to test nowadays, and because of mutations, and the oncoming possibilities of public health problems such as epidemics of flues, viruses, and infections, homeopathic medicine "has significant potential to keep pace in a way that will be made a solution to large public health problems." She says it is such an ideal solution, "because it's easy to pack, is portable, it keeps, it's inexpensive, you can treat a lot of people, and right away through homeopathic assessment, along with conventional diagnosis, without waiting for the conventional diagnosis to be confirmed. Homeopathic medicine's time has not yet come, it is coming, and it's time is rising now."

Because of the need for naturopathic and homeopathic medicine on a large scale, Dr. Snider also works with public policy makers, and is happy to see other homeopaths breaking into the public health sector. She believes that homeopaths with PhD's in public health are going to be a hot commodity. The integration of the rigour of science and the level of rigour one has to develop to attain a PhD, combined with the knowledge base of a homeopath with an excellent reputation is really exciting, and is a timely integration of credentials," she says.

Other professions are integrating their credentials and practices into the mainstream too: holistic nurses, holistic MDs, yoga therapists. "It's bringing about a very important debate," she says. "What is health care? Is it about taking pills, or is it the things we do to be healthy?" She says we need to change our view of health care. "Like the barefoot Chinese doctor: the doctor gets paid when the patient gets well. Well, for a naturopathic doctor, our highest intention is to want to become obsolete!" But it is definitely a complicated issue, and she's working on it. "I convert 'philosophy' into 'policy'. That's what I like to do," she says.

The future is wide open for this industrious woman, who is getting married this fall to another leading naturopathic physician. She has some vision for her far future though. "My 'Old Lady Dream' is to grow old practising medicine in an in-patient natural healing facility like the old nature-cure facilities, but in collaboration with excellent conventional medicine management, public health, and excellent clinical management with colleagues and other disciplines."

However, she says it will take many people to be involved and welcomed in the journey to a better vision of health care. It is like the old African saying: "If you want to travel fast, walk alone. If you want to travel far, walk with many." Well, even though many are walking, they still need leaders, and Dr. Pamela Snider is one of them, treading gently on the path ahead.

The future is wide open for this industrious woman, who is getting married this fall to another leading naturopathic physician. She has some vision for her far future though. "My 'Old Lady Dream' is to grow old practising medicine in an in-patient natural healing facility like the old nature-cure facilities, but in collaboration with excellent conventional medicine management, public health, and excellent clinical management with colleagues and other disciplines."

However, she says it will take many people to be involved and welcomed in the journey to a better vision of health care. It is like the old African saying: "If you want to travel fast, walk alone. If you want to travel far, walk with many." Well, even though many are walking, they still need leaders, and Dr. Pamela Snider is one of them, treading gently on the path ahead.

Contact information for Dr. Pamela Snider:
Executive and Senior Editor
Foundations of Naturopathic Medicine Project
Associate Professor; National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM)
www.foundationsproject.com

Seattle Office
1044 NE 188th St.
Seattle WA, 98155
206-517-4527
plsnider@comcast.net

NCNM Office
049 SW Porter St.
Portland, OR 97201
www.ncnm.edu

With thanks to copy editor Michelle Decary.