I graduated in medical sciences from Cambridge. I’ve worked as a herbal practitioner in Exeter since 1977.
During that time, I have led the key professional and trade groups for herbal medicine in the UK. I also served on committees in the Government and House of Lords.
I have written key textbooks for herbal practitioners around the world. Some were co-authored with Professor Kerry Bone from Australia.
I worked in academia for many years. I co-founded the University of Exeter’s Centre for Complementary Health Studies in 1987. We built a research and postgraduate teaching programme from scratch.
Later, I was at Peninsula, where we launched the first integrated health course at a UK medical school.
I helped create the first Master’s degree in herbal medicine in the USA at Maryland University of Integrative Health. After that I spent many fulfilling years as Herbal Strategist with the team at Pukka.
I’m fascinated by the insights we can gather from millions of smart people. They needed plants to survive for many centuries. I mostly want to learn and share old skills. I want to see healing plants as characters that can help us stay healthy.
I’m passionate about helping people care for themselves and their families. This has led me to collaborate with the founders of the College of Medicine on innovative national self-care and social prescribing projects.
I am now the College Self-Care lead and focus my time on sharing the power of plants for home use at my practice website plantguides.net