Post by University of Washington - School of Medicine

Some of the most powerful moments in medical education are happening outside the classroom. Each year, Montana WWAMI students visit Pony Creek Homestead for Ethnobotany Field Day, led by Dr. Colette Kirchhoff. It's an immersive, full-day experience that explores the intersection of plant science, human health, and environmental stewardship and it represents exactly the kind of holistic, integrative thinking we want future physicians to carry into practice. Dr. Kirchhoff brings rare depth to this work. Board certified in Family Medicine, Hospice & Palliative Medicine, and Integrative Medicine, she spent 23 years in primary care incorporating plant-based approaches into prevention and treatment plans. A 30-acre riparian forest in Pony, Montana serves as a living classroom. The day covers plant identification, biodiversity, planetary health, and the medicinal and nutritional value of native and foraged species grounded in a fact that still surprises many: 60–80% of our modern medicines are derived from plants. Students examine black henbane, the source of atropine. They learn to identify sweet cicely and why careful identification matters, given its resemblance to poisonous look-alikes. Clinical reasoning, practiced in the field. Students also forage ingredients and prepare a shared meal together this year, a wild greens, puffball mushroom and burdock root stir-fry, wild rhubarb crisp, and a tea brewed communally from more than 20 locally harvested plants. "Being in the thick of it with plants is so different from knowing about them on paper," Dr. Kirchhoff reflects. https://bit.ly/4fsl3ZD