Sam Coffman

Sam Coffman (Registered Herbalist, AHG, MS in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine), began his medical education in the military as a U.S. Special Forces Medic (aka Green Beret medic) in 1989. At that same time, he became highly interested in medical herbalism as a way to provide health care in remote regions with a minimum of medical supplies, for acute care, trauma and chronic conditions. This was the start of a long journey into the world of plant medicine for him, and after 1000’s of clinical hours as both a medic on teams and in military emergency rooms, as well as working with herbs throughout following decades, Sam’s primary goal has become the creation of an integrative medical model that embraces both vitalistic and mechanistic aspects of herbalism into a collaboration with allopathic (orthodox) models of diagnosis and treatment. in 2008 in central Texas, Sam founded an herbalism school called Herbal Medics Academy, AKA The Human Path (https://herbalmedics.academy). The main campus for this school is now located in the mountains just outside Taos, NM. In 2011, Sam and his wife Suchil also created an outreach organization called "Herbal Medics," with the mission of providing free herbal health care and education to underserved populations. As part of the off-grid type curriculum of their school, they also set up water filtration projects using slow-sand filtration in remote areas both inside and outside the USA. This outreach organization allows students to intern as part of a structured learning environment and experience how to plan for and implement health care in post-disaster, remote and underserved areas. It also allows some of the faculty at Herbal Medics Academy to teach free classes to underserved populations that range from permaculture techniques for growing food and medicine, to blacksmithing, wilderness first aid skills and more. The curriculum at Herbal Medics Academy is both interactively online and on-site (intensives) and primarily focuses on 4 major areas or programs of study. These areas are: Clinical Herbalism, Advanced Medicine Making (Apothecarist Program), Austere and Post-Disaster Medicine and Family Medicine (which also includes Doula certification). Sam is currently setting up an integrative clinic which is scheduled to open summer of 2023 on the Taos campus that includes Western Herbalism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Sports Medicine and Functional Medicine.