Naturopathic Medicine is practiced under the third broadest scope of practice in North America after that of medical doctors and osteopathic physicians. There are four naturopathic colleges in the US and one college in Canada. All naturopathic medical schools are either regionally accredited, professionally accredited or are candidates for regional and professional accreditation. The profession is currently licensed in eleven states, Puerto Rico, and four of eleven Canadian provinces.

Admission requirements for any of the accredited or eligible for accreditation colleges includes four years of pre-medical education. Most students enter with a baccalaureate degree or higher. There are four years of naturopathic medical training and clinical sciences including between 4400 and 4600 hours. Approximately one-third of those hours are devoted to clinical training providing direct patient care. Patient care commences at the beginning of the third year and proceeds through to graduation.

Naturopathic physicians are required to complete over 500 patient contact hours for graduation from Bastyr including 60 hours of preceptorships in private clinical practices. Southwest College of naturopathic Medicine requires 1000 hours of clinic rotations and graduates are able to achieve licensure for Acupuncture as well as Naturopathic Physician.

Post-graduate residencies in private practices are rapidly growing in Naturopathic medical schools. Hospital residencies, are not yet available. Naturopathic Physicians are on staff at a few hospitals in the U.S. Utah is the first state to require post-graduate residency training for licensure. The profession is supporting the creation of residency training opportunities by developing graduate medical education departments in naturopathic medical schools. The absence of federal funding continues to limit access to residency training for naturopathic physicians.

All naturopathic medical school graduates must complete the national naturopathic physicians licensing exams (NPLEX) in order to gain licensure. NPLEX is also utilized in Canada.