Herbal Medics, LLC

Sam Coffman, Registered Herbalist (American Herbalists Guild), Master of Science in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, began his own medical journey in 1989 as a US Special Forces (AKA Green Beret) Medic. Since then, he has created over 1200 hours of online and on-site curriculum focusing on western medical herbalism that integrates orthodox and botanical medicine both in the clinic and in the field. He has also authored a book (“Herbal Medic,” Storey Publishing) and he is releasing another book (“Survival Gardening”) in 2023.
Students at Herbal Medics Academy (HMA) are able to choose between four primary programs: Clinical Herbalism, Advanced Medicine Making (AKA Apothecarist Program), Austere and Post-Disaster Medicine and Family Medicine which also includes doula certification. There are over 20 faculty members who help create curriculum and teach at Herbal Medics Academy. All instructors at HMA are highly experienced in the subjects they teach and include doctors, herbalists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, nurse practitioners, midwives, nurse midwives and other professionals in the areas of gardening, medicine making, blacksmithing and more.
In addition to the HMA school and clinic near Taos, NM, Sam and his wife Suchil also created an outreach organization called “Herbal Medics” in 2011 in order to help underserved communities with free clinics, off-grid engineering projects like slow-sand water filtration, wilderness first aid certification and more. This also allows student interns to gain real-world experience planning for and setting up free herbal clinics in a post-disaster or underserved community. Training for Herbal Medics missions involves not only competence in the area of herbal medicine but also understanding how to plan and create the infrastructure for off-grid clinics. This includes expertise in subjects like radio and communications (to include HAM radio), community-level water purification and hygiene, medical reconnaissance to discover the needs and epidemiology of an underserved area, teamwork and leadership, land navigation, outdoor survival skills and more. Herbal Medics Academy has courses that teach these subjects as part of the Austere Medicine program.
While the highly interactive online courses at this amazing herb school allow students to learn fundamentals in each subject from a distance, on-site intensives both at their campus in the mountains just outside Taos, NM as well as at their campus in the hill country north of San Antonio, TX, allow students to gain critical hands-on experience in the more advanced subjects. These intensives usually last between 3 and 14 days and many are scenario-based training with role players and post-disaster or remote environments as the setting in order to help prepare students for real-world missions with Herbal Medics.
HMA offers classes that nobody else in the world teaches. For example, Sam Coffman and Dr. Steve Pehrson, MD created an entire program called the Herbal and Off-Grid Medicine Experience (HOME) that gives students the opportunity to learn orthodox trauma techniques, minor surgery in the field, medical reconnaissance to prepare a team for an off-grid medical mission and most importantly, making and using herbal medicine for acute, trauma and chronic conditions in a post-disaster or off-grid setting. Dr. Pehrson is also a former Green Beret Medic and has been both a family practice and board-certified emergency medicine doctor for several decades in rural Utah.
After working together to integrate herbal medicine with orthodox functional medicine for over 10 years, Sam Coffman and Dr. Kyla Helm, MD also created a course called “Botanical Functional Medicine” that is a part of the Clinical Herbalism program and introduces students not only to functional medicine but also to advanced clinical herbalism skills.
The HMA campus is nestled in the picturesque foothills of the Sangre de Cristo range in northern New Mexico, just minutes from downtown Taos and close to Angel Fire ski area. This campus has camping sites for students as well as a student kitchen, showers and latrines. The town of Taos that is less than 10 minutes’ drive away, offers great farm-to-table restaurants, art galleries and shops while Angel Fire Ski area which is 20 minutes in the other direction, boasts mountain biking, hiking, backpacking and winter sports in gorgeous mountain terrain.
HMA also includes a working, full-time apothecary (http://herbalfirstaidgear.com) that specializes in making unique, clinical-potency herbal formulas as well as herbal first aid packs, a formulary for professional health care practitioners and a vast array of other herbal products for the public.
All of these factors and more make Herbal Medics Academy stand out uniquely as the only school in the country that combines this type of wide variety of herbal medicine skills with wilderness and survival medicine, while also dedicating resources, student interns and time to providing free herbal health care services to communities in need.