I heard my bone break before I felt it.
It was a sharp crack—the unmistakable sound of something going wrong—as my left hand hit the ground, thumb extended, taking the full impact after I flew over the handlebars of my mountain bike. A small patch of sand. An unimpressive jump. And just like that, I had an avulsion fracture with millimeters of separation between the bones.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. I was less than a week away from starting the most demanding 5-month phase of the US Army Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC) at Fort Bragg, NC: Med Lab (AKA “Goat Lab”). Well over half my class had already washed out over the previous 7 months and the hardest part of this phase was just beginning.
Avulsion fracture of the thumb (proximal phalanx)
An orthopedic surgeon at the post hospital told me I needed surgery (Open Reduction Internal Fixation) and would have to delay training for months as a medical recycle, which I was unwilling to do, even after an ass-chewing from him that included threatening me with an Article 15 if he saw me back in there for the same injury.
Instead, at the barracks a few hours later, I cut off the cast they’d reluctantly given me, drove into town, and bought a pound each of comfrey and horsetail from a new age store. For the next several weeks, I kept my thumb wrapped almost constantly in gauze-wrapped, wet herbal poultices under an ACE wrap, changing the poultices out every few hours..
Three weeks later, when trauma scenarios began for my half of the class —the kind where you’re managing fully eviscerated intestines and blocked airways on live anesthetized goats—I had enough grip strength to expose and align tracheas for emergency surgical airways I had to perform under the clock every day as part of my daily scenarios. By the end of that phase 4 months later, I had full thumb function back. More than thirty years later, I still have no arthritis, no pain, and equal grip strength in both hands.
That injury became my initiation into something I was just beginning to understand at the time: herbal medicine was practical, field-capable medicine.
From Personal Use to Team Medicine
After that experience, I began carrying herbs with me into the field—not as a replacement for my medical kit, but as an additional tool. I was already trained in advanced trauma care and even minor field surgery, but herbs filled many gaps conventional medicine couldn’t always cover – especially when it came to acute respiratory, gut and even urinary tract infections.
My very first field herbal first aid kit I found in storage almost 30 years later, still with some dried herbs in it!
I carried tinctures and dried herbs for soft-tissue injuries and acute infections that could sideline an operator in remote environments. At first, it was just for personal use. Then teammates started asking questions. Soon I was helping their families as well—everything from recurring ear infections in kids to colds and flus, joint pain, and slow-healing injuries.
What became clear was simple: the same reasons herbal medicine worked in remote military environments were the reasons it worked everywhere. It provided options when conventional care was limited, unavailable, or simply wasn’t solving the problem.
But I also realized something else—almost no one was teaching this integration of clinical medicine and herbal therapeutics in a way that prepared practitioners for real-world austere conditions.
The Assumption Most Medical Training Makes
Modern medical education—whether civilian or military—operates on a powerful assumption: higher care is always available. Evacuation is always possible. The supply chain works. The hospital is nearby.
Anyone who has worked in disaster response, rural medicine, humanitarian operations, or remote environments knows that assumption fails more often than people think.
I’ve spent years working in places where I was the highest level of care available—sometimes for hours, sometimes for days, occasionally for much longer. I’ve watched hurricanes and the COVID pandemic collapse healthcare infrastructure. I’ve seen supply chains fail overnight. I’ve worked in regions where the nearest surgical facility was days away.
When those conditions exist, the medics who succeed aren’t just the ones who know protocols. They’re the ones who can improvise, integrate multiple approaches, and think beyond the systems they were trained in.
That’s what austere medicine really is: delivering effective care when the normal assumptions of modern healthcare no longer apply.
The Growing Need We Don’t Talk About Enough
We’re living in an era where disruptions are becoming more common, not less. Natural disasters are intensifying. Rural hospitals are closing. Supply chains prove fragile during crises. And for a lot of families, healthcare isn’t unavailable because it doesn’t exist—it’s unavailable because they can’t afford it or access it when they actually need it.
The question isn’t whether you might face a situation where conventional care isn’t immediately available. The question is whether you’ll have the knowledge to take care of your family, your neighbors, your community when that happens.
This isn’t about prepping for the apocalypse (although it could certainly be). It’s about practical resilience in a world where things we take for granted—access to doctors, medications, emergency services—can disappear faster than most people expect.
Building Something Different
About fifteen years ago, I met Dr. Steve Pehrson. Steve’s a family medicine physician with over 30 years of experience practicing in rural communities, often as the only doctor for miles. He understands austere medicine from a completely different angle than I do—not from military operations, but from the daily reality of practicing medicine in underserved areas where resources are limited and improvisation is just part of the job.
We both saw the same gap: practitioners were being trained to operate inside the system, but not prepared for when the system wasn’t available.
So we built the Austere Medicine Program at Herbal Medics Academy.
This isn’t a weekend herbal workshop. It’s not basic wilderness first aid. It’s comprehensive training that integrates emergency medicine, prolonged field care principles, and clinically relevant herbal therapeutics—designed specifically for environments where evacuation may be delayed and resources are limited.
The program covers trauma management when surgical backup isn’t available, infection control without reliable pharmaceutical supply chains, wound care for prolonged field scenarios, shock management and fluid balance in austere environments, and herbal materia medica selected for actual clinical effectiveness in emergency and post-disaster care.
We teach it the way we practiced it: not as “alternative medicine,” but as integrated medicine that uses every available tool intelligently.
Who This Training Serves
When we first created the program, we expected mostly military medics, wilderness professionals, and disaster responders. Many of our students still come from those backgrounds, but over time the audience expanded.
Today our students include:
- Nurses and physicians preparing for disaster response or medical missions
- Herbalists expanding into field work, community service or trauma care
- Rural healthcare providers working without immediate backup
- Families and community members who want the ability to respond during crises
You don’t have to be a licensed clinician to benefit from this training—but if you are, it will expand how you think about medical care in resource-limited environments.
The Course Starting This Spring
Our Austere Medicine: Trauma Focus course begins this spring and forms the foundation of the entire training pathway. It covers trauma assessment, hemorrhage control, airway management, shock treatment, wound care, and prolonged field care principles—with herbal therapeutics integrated throughout.
You’ll learn which plants provide hemostatic action for bleeding control, which herbs support infection control and wound healing, how to manage pain and inflammation when pharmaceuticals are limited, and how to build sustainable care protocols for long-duration scenarios.
It’s the course I wish I’d had access to thirty years ago when I was learning to be a Special Forces medic. It’s the training that would have made me more effective in every austere environment I ever worked in. And it’s what prepares you for the reality conventional medical education ignores: sometimes you’re all the help that’s coming.
The Practical Side: What Actually Works
Over three decades of field work, I’ve learned what works and what doesn’t when it comes to herbal medicine in austere conditions. You need formulas that are reliable, that store well, that you can actually carry with you and use under pressure.
Below, I’ve put together a short list of the herbal formulas I rely on most for common issues that come up in field medicine, disaster response, and situations where conventional care isn’t readily available. These are the same formulas we stock at Herbal First Aid Gear and the ones I teach students to use in the Austere Medicine Program.
Some of my most useful formulas I’ve developed over the past 3+ decades of working in the field –
| Herbal Formula Name | Herbs | Notes |
| Broad Spectrum Defender (BSD) | Echinacea mix, Algerita mix, Black Walnut mix, Myrrh, Andrographis, Uva Ursi, Chaff Flower, Angelica D., Baikal Skullcap, Chaparral, Black Pepper | This is my go-to formula for everything bacterial. It can be diluted down and used as a fantastic wound wash, poulticed onto wound infections, used for any bacterial upper respiratory, gut or even urinary tract infection in conjunction with other formulas |
| Biofilm Buster | Baikal Skullcap, Dandelion (leaf), Dahurian Angelica, Algerita (root and leaf), Chaff Flower, Birch Bark, Uva-Ursi, Yerba Mansa, Andrographis | Alternated with BSD or Urinary Health formula for bacterial infections that are chronic or have a high likelihood of biofilm formation, internal or external. |
| RC2 | Thyme, Elecampane, Neem, Japanese Knotweed, Gumweed, Wild Cherry, Perilla Seed, Alpinia k., Chuan Xiong | My go-to formula for onset of viral upper respiratory tract infections. Can be taken orally, sublinqually, sprayed or gargled in the throat, nasal atomization or nebulized. |
| RADS | Yerba Santa, Yerba Mansa, Ligusticum Chuan Xiong, Angelica d., Thyme, Gumweed, Echinacea mix, Pleurisy Root, Plantago, Horehound, Marshmallow Rt./Lf., Mullein Lf | For general upper (and lower) respiratory health, recovery from URI (i.e. deep phlegm) and preventative health maintenance when exposed to respiratory irritants, viruses. Also supportive help for chronic respiratory illness. |
| Urinary Health | Bilberry Leaf/Root, Corn Silk, Echinacea (a. & p.), Khella, Cranberry, Uva Ursi, Kava, Skullcap B | Combined with biofilm buster, a fantastic combination to deal with enteric-bacteria UTI infections, whether acute or chronic. |
| Gut Health | Algerita mix, Wafer Ash, Gentian, Chamomile, Ginger, Angelica a. | General gut support for inflammation, pain, diarrhea and nausea stemming from a variety of causes. |
Knowledge Creates Options
I think back to that broken thumb often—not because it was dramatic, but because it taught me something essential: knowledge creates options.
When the surgeon said I needed surgery, I had another option. When teammates and their families faced health issues that conventional medicine wasn’t solving, I had tools to offer. When I worked in remote environments where evacuation wasn’t immediate, I had the ability to provide care. Now as a clinical herbalist, the vast majority of the clients I see are coming to me after years of working with conventional medicine but not being able to overcome chronic issues.
In the end, that’s what all of our training at Herbal Medics Academy is really about—teaching students the tools to be able to create options when existing circumstances limit them.