We’ve been running a clinical herbalism mentorship program of one kind or another for more than fifteen years. We have some thoughts! Today’s episode is all about our model for a clinical herbalist mentorship, what we think it needs to include, and how it’s structured to benefit our students and clients most fully.

For context, we do have prerequisites to join mentorship – you need to have your herbal know-how dialed in before you can join! Completing our Family Herbalist and Community Herbalist programs, and performing well on the exams, is the baseline. Our mentorship students are also working through the Clinical Herbalist coursework concurrently, because mentorship is less about knowledge and more about communication, connection, strategy, and practicality.

Our students participate – first as observers, then as clinicians with faculty backup, then on their own – in our Free Clinic and Student Clinic sessions each month. We hold roundtable meetings with them after each of these events, so that everyone can share their cases and get feedback or suggestions. When they’re ready to conduct their own sessions, we roleplay clients whose health issues – or personalities! – present a helpful challenge for that student. In this way they get prepared to take on whatever may come.

We also work with our students to get their systems & marketing on point. It may not be what attracted you to herbalism in the first place, but if you want to be a clinician, you’re running a small business! You need these skills in order to sustain your work for the long haul, so we see them as equally important to formulation strategies or protocol construction.

Overall, our goal is to provide a clear path, with supports all along the way, toward greater independence and confidence as a clinical herbalist.

If you'd like more information about the Clinical Herbalist Mentorship, you'll find it here, as well as information about the pre-requisites. 

If you’d like to walk this path and you’re starting at the beginning, check out our Family Herbalist and Community Herbalist programs! They’ll get you fully prepared to enter into clinical training.

Like all our offerings, these bundles of self-paced online video courses come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, lifetime access to current & future course material, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!

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Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.

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You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!