Graduate Spotlight
Mark McDermott, N.D.
Mark McDermott is a registered herbalist whose clinical practice originated in lower Manhattan 17 years ago. "It was a time when the AIDS/HIV crisis created a concern and a real passion for understanding the natural working and healing ability of the body," he says.
Formerly a chef and cooking teacher who also juggled personal responsibilities while making this career change, Mark remembers hearing about Clayton College's flexible distance learning format and finding it a novel idea that suited him well.
After his CCNH studies Mark, the perpetual learner, sought additional studies in herbal medicine with the American Herbalist Guild, earning the title of AHG registered herbalist - a distinction shared by less than 160 people worldwide!
Mark, now the perpetual teacher, had clearly traded in his chef's hat when he began teaching herbal studies and established herbal consulting practices in New York, Florida, California, and his native Connecticut.
Over the years reporters from TV, print, and radio media have interviewed Mark as a subject matter expert on herbal remedies. For years he hosted a five-minute cable TV show, The Herbalist's Notebook, featuring one plant, or one usage, or one preparation of a healing botanical. Although taping ended when he moved to California, this popular and informative show is still in reruns!
In 2000 his Professional Manual of Botanical Medicines Used in Western Clinical Practice became another important teaching tool because it is concise, straightforward and overflowing with accessible herbal wisdom. Following the terrorism of 9-11 Mark chose to spend less time as a traveling practitioner. He returned home to New England two months later, and still maintains a satellite office in San Francisco.
As one who clearly enjoys refining his skills and redefining his work, Mark now mentors the next generation of herbalists: high school students. He attends their career day fairs and lets some of the more serious students "shadow" Mark at speaking engagements or during consultations. The clients who are willing to be observed and overheard become co-teachers by allowing a teenage student into their sessions. "The students I invite are observant and on the ball," Mark comments, referring to teenagers whose post-session reviews include asking their herbal teacher all manner of pertinent questions.
He also offers a professional mentorship/internship, designed to allow more mature students of herbalism to learn case taking and herbal dispensing via shadowing Mark's clients as well as introducing their friends, family and other community members to learn more about herbal health by attending these low-cost ongoing teaching clinics.
Here, student intern hours and client assessments are reviewed by Mark and made available to AHG (see www.americanherbalist.com for guidelines and a copy of the AHG mentorship handbook). Mark offers distance mentoring is available as well.
In his community seminars and college courses for physicians and other health professionals, Mark advocates patience: the herbs' gentler botanical energies are subtle in addressing the body's nutritional deficits, or sometimes soothing the so called quick fix of too many chemical treatments. He recommends the use of local, organic herbs that are free of preservatives.
In creating his own product line of extracts or tinctures, sometimes a plant or plant part may be chopped up, soaked, strained and bottled. Other botanicals are infused even more simply, as in a cup of tea. His process of simmering roots or bark for hours in water hot for highest potency is called decoction.
Mark's botanical formulas include various eye drops that are safe for contact lenses, anti-inflammatory ear drops infused with garlic in pure olive oil, skin creams and ointments, herbal throat sprays, lip balms and very popular nasal sprays. Some botanicals are refined to address symptoms such as hay fever, while other restorative formulas soothe the long-term effects of chemical products.
"People will always crave a natural healing," Mark McDermott concludes, "and the Earth will always provide the remedy."
For more information: www.aerostatx.com or www.WesternHerbalist.com
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