The natural medicine workforce: Terms in public use

Although individual natural therapies and their scope of practice are increasingly recognised and understood in Australia, the same cannot be said for the natural medicine workforce itself which struggles to find a single well-defined and universally accepted identity. Historically the natural medicine workforce has been described by various terms including 'alternative therapists', 'complementary therapists', 'complementary and alternative therapists' or 'CAM therapists/practitioners' and more recently 'integrative medicine practitioners'. Lack of consistency between the terms used by the public and those used by members of health care professions, including natural medicine practitioners themselves, may hinder public understanding about natural medicine and contribute to ongoing disunity within natural therapy professions. Such disunity would weaken the representation of natural medicine to government agencies and to public policy development.