The Dr. Tyna Show
Fake Credentials & Medical Misinformation: What You Need to Know | SOLO
Thu, 03 Apr 2025
EP. 204 There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and today, I’m breaking down the truth about fake credentials in the medical and wellness space. From bogus board certifications to outright fake PhDs, I’m giving you the tools to spot the red flags and protect yourself from bad advice. Too many people are being misled by so-called experts, and it’s time to set the record straight. In this episode, I’ll walk you through the different types of credentials, what’s real, what’s not, and how you can make sure you’re getting advice from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about. Sponsored By: → Sundays | As a Listener of The Dr Tyna Show, you can Get 40% off your first order of Sundays. Go to sundaysfordogs.com/DRTYNA and use code DRTYNA at checkout. → BIOptimizers | Go to bioptimizers.com/tyna and use promo code TYNA10 to order Masszymes now and get 10% off any order → Lumen | lumen.me/DRTYNA to get 20% off your Lumen. → Manukora | Head to manukora.com/DRTYNA to get $25 off the Starter Kit, which comes with an MGO 850+ Manuka Honey jar, → Qualia | Go to qualialife.com/DRTYNA for up to 50% off your purchase and use code DRTYNA for an additional 15% → Nutrisense | Head over to nutrisense.io/drtyna to get $125 off your program. On This Episode We Cover: → 00:00:00 - Introduction → 00:05:12 - Dr. Tyna’s credentials → 00:11:14 - Completing two medical programs → 00:14:20 - PhD education & credentials → 00:17:36 - Primary care providers vs. health coaches → 00:20:07 - Turf wars in medicine → 00:27:03 - Fear tactics in wellness → 00:33:53 - What makes a naturopathic doctor fake? → 00:37:46 - Real doctor, fake ND → 00:40:40 - The rise of fake PhDs → 00:42:31 - Fake degrees & diploma mills → 00:45:38 - Fake board certifications → 00:46:43 - What real naturopathic credentials look like → 00:51:01 - Legitimate PhDs vs. fake ones → 00:52:46 - The truth about functional medicine → 00:53:31 - How to vet your practitioner → 00:54:44 - Unqualified Medical Advice → 00:55:45 - How fake doctors are made → 00:56:07 - Red flags to watch for Further Listening: → Orthopedic Medicine Playlist Disclaimer: Information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only. This information is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional, or any information contained on or in any product. Do not use the information provided in this podcast for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing medication or other treatment. Always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before taking any medication or nutritional, herbal or other supplement, or using any treatment for a health problem. Information provided in this blog/podcast and the use of any products or services related to this podcast by you does not create a doctor-patient relationship between you and Dr. Tyna Moore. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent ANY disease.
Chapter 1: What are fake credentials in the medical field?
You are tuned into The Dr. Tina Show with Dr. Tina Moore. For more, visit drtina.com. Hey, guys. On this episode of The Dr. Tina Show, I maybe chose violence. I woke up today feeling very strongly that there was some information you guys need to know. And...
I hate to be the messenger on this one, but there are a lot of people in the online social media space with fake credentials and you're all getting snowed by them. So I am going to break this down for you in detail to help give you guys some information that I think you all deserve to know that nobody's put together yet that I can find because nobody wants to upset the apple cart.
While I'm not necessarily trying to tout my own degrees as being superior or having any kind of turf war, there is so much fakeness out there that is impacting you that you have no clue about. And I recently made a post about this. Well, I didn't make a post. I posted about it in my stories on Instagram and it got a lot of response.
And there was a whole lot of people saying, oh my gosh, I had no idea. How are we supposed to sort this out for ourselves? The problem is it's not easy. I'm going to give you some parameters today on this episode. And then there were people who came at me and were mad and said, you're just trying to say that your credentials are all that matter.
And, you know, you're just trying to turf war and, you know, whatever, accused of all kinds of things. I think you should know that there are people out there calling themselves doctor who are not doctors. I think you should know that there are people out there who are certain types of doctors, but they're not at all clinical or health doctors.
And they're giving medical advice and you're taking it. I think you should know that there are diploma mills and there are ways that you can just go literally buy a board certification. There's a whole lot of fake PhDs out there and it's getting worse and worse and it's bleeding over into spaces. And I don't feel right about it.
So I'm going to just tell you what I know, and I'm going to break it down for you. And hopefully on this episode, you guys will leave knowing more than you walked in with, and you'll be armed with some information that who knows, maybe life-changing for you. So let's jump in. Guys, I have to tell you about the absolute game changer in my dog's lives. Sunday's dog food.
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Chapter 2: How can you identify real vs. fake medical practitioners?
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Their 365-day full money-back guarantee is the gold standard of the industry. For your exclusive offer as a listener of The Dr. Tina Show, head to buyoptimizers.com forward slash drtina and use promo code drtina. Again, that link is buyoptimizers.com forward slash drtina. All right, so first off, again, disclaimer, I'm not trying to say that my degrees are superior to anyone's. I'm a chiropractor.
I'm a naturopathic physician. Both of those required a four-year degree. I had to sit for board exams for both. In the chiropractic profession, there's multiple sets of board exams. They are... US and there's Canada board exams. I took the US board exams. I passed them. I got my license. I no longer carry my chiropractic license. I let that go in 2020. Why?
Because as a licensed naturopathic doctor in Oregon, I have a very broad scope. I'll get into the training around that in a minute. And I... didn't need the chiropractic license anymore. And oddly, this is the odd part. It was February 2020 when I let my chiropractic license go. I knew something was coming and I knew my voice would be needed.
And my dad was so mad at me for letting that license go. And he said, why would you do this? I said, dad, I can still adjust people. I can still do everything I can do with my chiropractic license under my ND license. I'm fine. And he didn't get it. And I get it. I mean, I get where he was coming from, but it's not like I couldn't just go take the board exam and go get it again. Right.
Um, I've taken all the credentialing schooling. I've sat for and passed all the board exams. I have everything I need. The point was, I didn't really feel like having two boards come at me and I knew my voice was going to be needed. And sure enough, a few weeks later, you know, the whole world changed and I used my voice. So if you were there, you saw it. My ND degree, that's a four year program.
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Chapter 3: What distinguishes a naturopathic doctor from a traditional physician?
I hold that license and I have to pay for that every two years. You have to be a real doctor to get that. I drop four-inch needles into people's spines. I can prescribe virtually every drug on the formulary out there, aside from like a few different ones that we can't prescribe in Oregon. But in Oregon, we have a very broad scope. I can do minor surgery.
I'm not going to sit here and try to prove myself, but we are trained as real doctors, I promise you. But there are fake NDs, fake naturopathic doctors. And there are NDs in unlicensed states. And so it gets very confusing. That's what we're going to get into today. I'm just trying to explain what the foundation is. So I went through two programs nearly completely.
There was very little overlap in my credits. So very little of my credits from one school transferred to the other because they were so vastly different. And so I went through two entire programs. medical program trainings. And I sat for two entirely separate sets of board exams. And I sat for two separate sets of licensing exams.
And I held two licenses up until 2020 when I let my chiropractic degree go. I tell you all of this because this process takes... You have to have an undergrad to get in to either program. This process takes... All in all, my process took about 12 years. And... Just about $350,000. That doesn't include any extra training.
All of the CEUs I did, continuing education, all of the specialty training I did. This is just bare bones getting my license to treat and to see patients and to be called a doctor. So that said... The fake NDs, I'll get into their training in a minute, but you will be shocked.
And this is why I need to say something because I was talking to one of my friends the other day and I was like, hmm, so my 500 or 400 and something dollar a year licensing fees, I hold license in a few states, so I have a couple of licensees. So my licensing fees plus my DEA fees plus my continuing education costs plus
plus my degree that cost me, plus the compounded interest on that degree that, you know, I think by the time I paid off my student loans, it was 100 Gs in interest that I paid. A good chunk of my life, a huge chunk of my daughter's young life, the fact that I can write prescriptions in this state and several other states where NDs are licensed,
The fact that I can drop needles into people's spines, essentially. Oh, my, you know, several thousand, several thousand dollar a year malpractice insurance. I mean, all of those would argue that I'm much more of a real doctor than many of these fake NDs. But the population at large is confused. And I get why.
Because you've got folks on Instagram with huge accounts, hundreds of thousands of followers. They call themselves Dr. So-and-so NDs. And they hold absolutely no credentials whatsoever that would allow them to call themselves doctor. But that term is not federally policed. And so they get away with it. And you believe it. And it's very difficult to find where their credentials are.
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Chapter 4: What are the red flags for spotting medical misinformation?
And how do we get you back to homeostasis? And how do we get your body to respond? Now, in Oregon, we have license to prescribe, and I use it. I have no qualms about using it. It was my mentor, Dr. Rick Marinelli, who made that happen. Him and his buddy, Dr. Kevin Wilson, made it so that we have a very broad scope of practice in Oregon to prescribe, very broad licensing.
And I'm grateful for that. My favorite thing is to get people off their medications. And if you have ever worked with me, you know that I've said that to you at some point. Like, I look forward to being able to either reduce or discontinue these medications. If you can't prescribe it, you cannot tell someone to get off of it.
So you chiropractors out there, you health coaches, you registered dieticians, nutritional therapists, I honor all of you. I think that we need more people help. We have so many sick people. So again, this is not turf wars, but you're... You are not legally allowed to tell your clients or patients to discontinue a drug if you can't prescribe it. And I don't know if people know that.
I don't know if they know that. I don't know if the public knows that. But that's where it's at. And so very often I'll hear, well, my health coach told me to stop taking my thyroid. I didn't need it. I'm like, what? That's not legal. But they have no licensing board. So... there's nobody to hold them accountable. It gets very messy. And I can understand how this could be very confusing for you.
Chapter 5: How do turf wars affect the wellness industry?
So I'm going to try to give you guys some information today. I'll quit ranting here. And you can decide for yourself and you can go be, you know, little detectives and figure out who's what. Now I want to clarify, I know some health coaches that are smarter than half the NDs I know. I know some nutritional therapists that are way more talented than half the chiropractors I know.
That's not to say there's not talented NDs and chiropractors out there. That's just to say that I really honor the role and the work that health coaches are doing. I honor the role that nutritional therapists are doing. I honor the role that registered dietitians are doing. I honor the role that folks with masters in nutrition are doing.
I honor the role that PhDs with extensive knowledge in nutrition and other subspecialties are doing. I honor the role that Andrew Huberman is playing in the world to get people to wake up and see different perspectives. I'd love that. Dr. Stacey Sims is out there empowering women to get stronger and to train like an athlete. I honor all of the... I have no problem with turf wars.
I think it's so exciting. One of the most exciting things I've seen in my career is this shift from complete turf wars. Like when I started in naturopathic college, the chiropractors just across town didn't even know that the naturopathic college was there. And by the time I graduated, there were several of them dating each other and the schools had come together, right? So like...
I feel like I had something to do with that. And it was in a short amount of time. And, but they still were very segregated in what they did and where they're like, you know, what lanes they were in. And now when you go to a lot of these trainings, it's really vast and eclectic. And you go to some of these physical medicine, you know,
certifications and there's strength and conditioning coaches in there and there's Pilates instructors and there's NDs and there's chiropractors and you go to some of the specialty neurology chiropractic training and there's NDs in there and there's MDs in there.
It's a very exciting time and I think it's great that we're all overlapping and we're realizing that there are different tools and different tool belts and that we don't necessarily have to master someone else's tool belt but that we can get to know what they do and we can have good referral relationships because ultimately it's about bettering the patient's outcomes and getting the patient where they need to be
and working with the right people. Like I know my wheelhouse. Sometimes you guys write into the podcast and you email me and you say, you know, will you cover this? And I'm like, dude, that is not my wheelhouse. I don't know anything about that.
I may consider hiring, you know, not hiring, interviewing an expert in it on the podcast, but like, it's not my wheelhouse and it doesn't have anything to do with the podcast. Like it's not my brand, it's nothing to do with anything that my listeners would be interested in. And I just know my boundaries. I don't try to tiptoe into other places that I don't know well. I admit defeat.
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Chapter 6: What’s the difference between PhDs and medical doctors?
Love me or hate me. Believe that my degree is real or not. I don't care. But there are people pulling some fake shit and you guys should know. So without naming names, I'm going to give you the information and then hopefully you'll write down some notes and you'll go doing some sleuthing and figuring out what's what, because I think you deserve to know.
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Chapter 7: How can you protect yourself from bad medical advice?
They would come after you. But for some reason, even in the licensed state, they don't come after the fake NDs that often, although I would hope they would. Now we've got many unlicensed naturopathic states. There are some where naturopaths are just certified to work. And I'll break this down for you in a minute. and see patients, but they can't do much.
They can do just basic, I mean, they can actually get a lot done because good old fashioned basic naturopathic medicine is very powerful, but they can't prescribe, they can't diagnose, et cetera. Some places I don't even think they can order imaging or labs, but They are, there's some oversight, right? There's some oversight. I think Colorado, I think Washington, D.C. has this kind of setup.
And then there's totally unlicensed states where it's the Wild West and there are people there who are fake NDs calling themselves doctor. And then here's a fun one. There are other states trying to get licensed. The naturopathic doctors, the real naturopathic doctors in those states are trying to get those states licensed.
But there are fake NDs in those states who've been there for so long and have such a stronghold, even politically and connections. And I've heard this firsthand from doctors trying to actually get their states licensed that they have to basically grandfather them in and allow them to continue to call themselves Dr. So-and-so ND, even though they're complete fakes. How's that one for you?
So this is where we're at. Whose fault is it? I don't know. I've tried to get my profession to stand up and do something against this for decades. They won't. I've tried to get the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians to take action. I've tried to get state associations to take action and it doesn't seem to ever go anywhere. So
I know everybody's probably doing the best they can do, but whose fault is it that there's fake NDs running around? It's our fault. It's our fault as a profession. We did not bring the kibosh down hard enough when this all was happening. My mentor tried hard. He called them undies. These are the fake NDs.
He tried very hard to get rid of them and to no avail because it's, you know, it needs to be a unified organization. Force, so many licensed professionals like chiropractors, dentists, or even medical doctors, this is the other confusing part. They can call themselves doctor because they're real, but then they go get a fake ND on top of it. So how's that for... Fun.
So I know many chiropractors who are real doctors, Dr. So-and-so DC, but then they go get a fake ND. So now they are DC ND. Just like me, they have the same letters behind their name, but we did not have the same clinical training whatsoever. And they did not go through a four-year ND school and they did not collect the $200,000 student loan bill.
And they did not sit for North American, the NPLEX exams. And they did not sit for their state board. There's no license as an ND, but they're calling themselves NDs. ND. So I know dentists who do this. I know chiropractors who do this and they will fight me tooth and nail. And I'm like, dude, you're a fake ND. And it is what it is. Right.
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Chapter 8: What steps can you take to vet your health practitioners?
And that's where most of the fake NDs are coming out of. These are all mail order diplomas. These are all online programs with mail order diploma, they're mills. They have little to no academic credibility whatsoever. So the fake, let's see, unaccredited or fake schools, again, Trinity School of Natural Health, There's no academic oversight.
The Kingdom College of Natural Health offers alternative PhDs and other degrees. It's based offshore. The University of Natural Medicine offers unaccredited doctorates in natural health and naturopathy. The Briar State University is a known diploma mill. The International Quantum University for Integrative Medicine offers PhDs in quantum healing and natural medicine. No research required.
There's no it's not a real PhD. I don't know how people can get away with this. Here's the fake boards that provide the certification. So you can literally go buy a board. certification. You can say I'm board certified. You can go purchase it. The American Naturopathic Medical Certification Board. That sounds very official, doesn't it? The ANMCB. Write this one down.
American Naturopathic Medical Certification Board. This is where a lot of them are coming out of. And it's a fake board certification. The International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine. Fake. The American Association of Drugless Practitioners. That sounds very official, doesn't it? It's fake. It's a fake board mill.
The World Organization, the World Organization of Natural Medicine Practitioners. Fake. These boards allow anyone to buy a board certification. So let's go through them really quick. American Naturopathic Medical Certification Board. Write it down. The International Practitioners of Holistic Medicine. The American Association of Drugless Practitioners. I see that one a lot.
The World Organization of Natural Medicine Practitioners. If you go to their websites, they look official. Like they would confuse me. I'd be like, this looks real. So what is a real naturopathic doctor? Again, to repeat, we complete a four-year doctoral program from a school accredited by the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education, the CNME.
We sit for the NPLEX, which is the Naturopathic Physicians Licensing Examination. These are spendy board exams, people. We obtain a license from a state or provincial medical board in Canada, its provinces. We practice only in jurisdictions that legally recognize and regulate naturopathic medicine. And that's it. And then we have to sit for our licensing board exam.
We have to keep our licenses up. We have to get continuing education. There's a ton of costs involved. We have to carry malpractice insurance. We have different scope in different states. And that's what it is. Now, again, if you're dealing with a real naturopathic doctor in an unlicensed state, you're not going to be able to look up. There's no board.
So you're not going to be able to look up their license. So that's where it gets a little gray. And I'm sorry for those who are, for my colleagues who I love very much who are in unlicensed states. I'm not throwing you under the bus. I'm just trying to give people some direction to go and some path. All right, so here are the schools, the real schools.
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