Herbal Medics Academy (HMA) is the branch of The Human Path school, that is focused solely on botanical medicine as well as the medicine-related subjects that fulfill requirements for the medic foundational path.

The curriculum at HMA includes over 1800 hours of online, on-campus and clinical practicum.  This curriculum is divided as follows:

• Introduction to Botanical Medicine for Beginners: This 6-week, online course is the starting point for someone with little to no background in herbal medicine.  Starting from ground zero, this course is a good introduction that leads into the next course – Introduction to Botanical Medicine for Professionals.
• Introduction to Botanical Medicine for Professionals: This 12-week, online course includes the Introduction to Botanical Medicine for Beginners (for those who feel they need it) and then picks up where that leaves off.  Students are mailed packages of herbs and other resources to be able to make medicine at home, as a class.  Over the course of 12 weeks, 60+ interactive hours (video lectures and Q & A), quizzes and weekly assignments all serve to create an environment that gives the student all of the introduction they need to move into our more advanced courses.
• The Path of the Clinical Herbalist: This path takes about 3 years to complete.  Following the Intro for Professionals, the student is ready to take our pathophysiology modules (online), case management, formulation and other online classes, while beginning their clinical hours.  The required 400 clinical hours can be accrued through our distance (phone) clinic and round table discussion, at our local (San Antonio) clinic, individual case studies, and our clinical weeks around the country (3 per year).
• The Apothecarist: This path includes one year (two 12-week semesters) of online, highly-interactive, live classes, homework involving herbs and materials sent to the student’s home, and a completion of at least three of the six on-campus (3-day) intensives.  The intensive subjects are:  Mushroom Medicine Making, Essential Oil Distillation, Internal Botanical Medicine Making, External Botanical Medicine Making, Food as Medicine and Multi-Fractional Botanical Medicine Making.
• The Emergent Responder: This 3-semester (12 weeks each) course is entirely online and delves into both botanical medicine as well as emergency medicine, emergency response and organizational/management concepts around crises.  From bandaging techniques to understanding FEMA, herbal approaches to shock and stress, radio and communications, organizing teams and much more, this course is in-depth training in the area of post-disaster and austere medicine.
• The Path of the Family Herbalist: This path is geared toward the management of health care issues in the family and focuses on women’s health, reproductive health and pediatric health.  Also a part of this program for those who are interested is a doula certification program and an emergency birth course.  Depending on the sub-course, the curriculum is either fully online or both online and on-campus.
• Wilderness First Aid and Wilderness First Responder Certification: These certification courses are a 24-hour (3-day on-campus) and a 100-hour (10-day on-campus, 20 hours online) certification course respectively.  In addition to fulfilling the curriculum and training requirements for a full 16-hour WFA and an 80-hour WFR certification, these courses also include an integration of botanical medicine in austere and post-disaster environments.

Our 50-acre campus is located about a 30-minute drive north of the San Antonio Airport in.  We also teach some of our urban classes in downtown San Antonio, as well as hold our regular student-run herbal clinics downtown in San Antonio.  We teach orienteering and land navigation, as well as our primitive survival races and many of our scouting and reconnaissance classes on a 2000 acre ranch close to town, as well as other locations throughout the hill country.

Our courses are offered both online and on-campus  as well as much longer segments of back-to-back courses on-campus for people from out of town who want a full immersion experience.