Heilpraktiker

Heilpraktiker ("healing practitioner(s)") is a naturopathic state-approved and state-regulated profession in German-speaking countries. In its ideal form, it's a "lite" version of physicians, diagnosing and treating ailments, but while the profession is more regulated than naturopathic professions in other countries, Heilpraktiker tend to specialise on CAM treatments.

Germany
In January 2006, the magazine Ökotest tested 20 Heilpraktiker. With "very good" as the best result, 4 were "good", 5 would be warned against. The remaining filled out the range in between, with all kinds of misdiagnosis and useless treatments. In 2008, Stiftung Warentest's most important magazine Test tested 40 Heilpraktiker and concentrated on homeopathy and Traditional Chinese Medicine. The service was rated positively, medical competency was rated as fragmentary. When it came to standards for classical homeopathy and TCM, the ratings were higher.

In August 2017, an interdisciplinary group of experts, Münsteraner Kreis, wrote Münsteraner Memorandum Heilpraktiker. This publication notes a gap of standard of quality in the medical sector when comparing the CAM-riddled Heilpraktiker and regular medical care. In its conclusion, it calls for either dissolving the profession or for a radical reform on the basis of competency. This caused various reactions in media     , in journals and from the medical community     and — of course — from Heilpraktiker associations.

Requirements
If you want to become Heilpraktiker:
 * You need to be 25 years old, have a minimal level of education and be generally fit to act as Heilpraktiker.
 * You can't work in another profession while practicing.
 * You need to pass a written exam about anatomy, medicine and law (usually multiple choice, and you need 75%) and pass a 30-45 minutes oral exam, in which you need to convince two physicians, two Heilpraktiker and one person who's neither, that you have sufficient knowledge and you don't pose a threat to public health.

Based on the requirements you have to pass an exam at health office to practice as a 'Heilpraktiker' in Germany. Furthermore, in addition to the fully authorized 'Heilpraktiker', there are also so-called sectoral 'Heilpraktiker' who are restricted in their allowed job profile.

Congrats, the German state now allows you to practice in a medical context, including physiotherapy and psychotherapy — as long as you know what you're doing, people can still sue you and you need to obey all of the other laws as well. Among other things, you're not allowed to prescribe drugs, function as a dentist, function as a midwife, function as a coroner, apply radiotherapy or do anything about notifiable diseases or STDs. This means that you can be one of the 10% not having any training before starting as a Heilpraktiker.

Too much work? If you're OK with working on animals instead of humans, just call yourself Tierheilpraktiker and start right away!

Switzerland
While nomenclature for German Heilpraktiker tries to at least pretend there's a focus on a medical standard, the Swiss version specifically has four pseudomedical branches for the profession: The officially recommended English translation is ''naturopathic practitioner with Advanced Federal Diploma of Professional Education and Training in discipline
 * Ayurveda Medicine
 * Homeopathy
 * Traditional Chinese Medicine TCM
 * Traditional European Naturopathy''

Requirements
The Swiss version has its most significant differences in the following: As such, the official requirements lean more heavily on a vocational training than in Germany.
 * 2 or 3 years of experience in the profession
 * a graduation in modules covering ethics and medicine, basics in medicine, the chosen branch, therapy, business studies, practical working and a mentored internship.
 * The exams are evaluated by at least two experts (the candidate's teachers, relatives, business partners, current and previous superiors and coworkers).

Austria
Heilpraktiker is not a legal profession in Austria — in fact, training or practicing as Helipraktiker is illegal. The only ones allowed to do medicine without supervision by a physician are (wait for it) physicians. When contested by a market-leading Heilpraktiker corporation, the European Court of Justice upheld Austrian law to be compatible with EU law in this regard.