Hello and welcome!
I’m Agy (pronounced like Maggie), and you’ve found your way to The Buffalo Herbalist, where I spend an arguably unreasonable amount of time thinking about physiology, plant medicine, and what happens when the two meet.
I’ll get the credentials out of the way up front! I earned my MD from Wrocław Medical University in Poland in 2015, though I’m non-practicing, and later earned an MSc in Herbal Medicine. I’m currently completing my Doctor of Science in Integrative Health, where my research interests include herb-drug interactions, drug metabolism, and the gut microbiome.
My narrative review on herbal allies for the gut microbiome across the lifespan was published in the Journal of the American Herbalists Guild in its Winter 2025 edition, if you’d like to check it out!
That’s me (on the left!) and a classmate! Exciting day in Emergency Medicine class in 2014! A helicopter flew in patients from a bus accident. I miss those clogs (not).
How I Got Here
After earning my MD in 2015, I came back to the States and started doing clinical rotations, mostly as a way of figuring out what came next. I was halfway through radiology when the attending pulled me aside one afternoon and asked where I saw myself in five years.
I told him, with the full sincerity of someone who had apparently developed absolutely no filter, that I wanted to run a roadside vegetable stand so I could feed my community.
The look he and his PA exchanged told me, fairly conclusively, that I was not on the path I was supposed to be on. He was right! It was also SO embarrassing, and it remains one of those memories my brain likes to retrieve at completely unnecessary times.
I didn’t end up pursuing clinical practice. Once I stopped trying to force myself toward a career that didn’t fit, though, the rest of the road started making considerably more sense. I’d always been drawn to plants, food, and the relationship between what we put into the body and what happens once it gets there. Herbal medicine eventually gave me a place to bring that curiosity together with the physiology I already loved.
In 2022, I began formal herbal training at the Northern Appalachia School, where I studied bioregional herbalism, and the following summer I studied under Tammi Sweet at the Heartstone Herbal School. From there, herbal medicine became less of a separate interest and more of the direction my academic life was taking.
I’m still actively studying outside my formal coursework too, currently working my way through Matthew Wood’s online materials. I don’t think there’s ever going to be a point where I feel finished learning this. The more I study, the more questions I have, which is probably why I’m still here writing about all of it. The day I stop being a student of this work is probably the day I should stop writing about it!
These articles are written from my little corner of the world along Lake Erie, just south of Buffalo, NY (hence the name!), from a cozy home shared by two humans, a few Chihuahuas, and a whole lot of books.
I don’t currently grow herbs for medicinal use because we live a little too close to a golf course for me to feel comfortable with what might be making its way into the surrounding soil. One day, I hope to have enough land to grow as much as I want! I’m also a first-generation American with very strong Polish roots.
That’s me! Sketching a plant in Dillsburg, PA while at Northern Appalachia School in 2022.
What I’m Doing Here
My focus always comes back to physiology. I came to herbal medicine with a background in medicine, so as I learned about plants, I kept wanting to know what was happening on the other side of the equation. What happens after we swallow an herb? Which constituents are absorbed? Where do they go? What pathways do they interact with? And how does any of that translate into the effects we associate with a particular plant?!
That curiosity really built this publication.
I love herbal medicine, but I also love the ridiculously intricate physiology happening underneath it all. Digestion, immunity, endocrine signaling, the nervous system, metabolism, drug transporters, enzymes, receptors... give me all of it! The human body is endlessly fascinating to me, and herbal medicine gives me another reason to keep learning how all of those systems work and interact.
Simple lists of “herbs for X” have never held my attention for very long. I want the context. I want to know what the research says about a plant, how strong that evidence is, where the limitations are, and what else might change the picture. Medications, absorption, metabolism, existing physiology... those details are usually where things get interesting!
Traditional, historical, and folkloric herbalism also have an important place in this field, and there are plenty of wonderful people writing about them. I encourage you to learn from them too! My brain naturally wanders toward physiology and research, so that’s the piece of herbal medicine I’ve made my home here.
What I’m reading changes constantly. One week I might be buried in the gut microbiome, and the next I’m reading about intestinal transporters, endocrinology, drug metabolism, or herb-drug interactions. There isn’t always a neat editorial calendar behind it. I read something, develop approximately seventeen new questions, and inevitably end up writing about one of them!
Whatever I’m researching, the framework stays the same: I start with the body.
Posting Cadence
I generally publish up to once a week. Some weeks that means a shorter exploration of something I’ve been reading or thinking about; other weeks, it’s a long-form deep dive with all the physiology, research, and citations that come with it!
My doctoral program has changed the pace of The Buffalo Herbalist quite a bit. I used to publish twice a week on a fairly predictable schedule, and right now I simply don’t have the bandwidth to do that well.
I’d rather give myself the time to read, research, and write something I’m proud of than publish just because Tuesday or Friday rolled around.
Most of my work sits behind the paywall because this publication is my full-time job, and the paywall is what keeps the lights on. Chronic illness took conventional career paths off the table for me, and what I’ve built here is the version of work that fits the body I actually live in. Every so often, I’ll send a piece out from behind the wall for everyone to read.
Preppin’ roots at Heartstone Herbal School in 2023
What Paid Subscribers Get
A paid subscription gives you access to all of my writing, including the longer clinical, physiological, and research-heavy articles that make up the bulk of what I publish.
You’ll also get the occasional downloadable PDF or reference guide, access to The Herbalist’s Notebook (my more personal collection of case study reflections and research notes), AMA and Q&A posts, and any extended research projects I publish throughout the year.
If You’re Not Ready to Go Paid
If a paid subscription isn’t in the cards right now, you’re still very welcome here! Free subscribers receive every free article I publish along with previews of paid pieces, and I occasionally open full-length articles for everyone to read.
Read what you can, learn something new, and stick around as long as you’d like. :)
A Note on AI
I use AI tools to assist with parts of my process, including organizing research notes, editing, and occasionally creating visuals/tables/graphs. Every study I cite is personally read and evaluated by me, and the interpretations and conclusions in my work are my own.
Dandelions that POOFED up on me as I learned, through trial and obvious error, that dehydrating is a delicate skill.
The Buffalo Herbalist has changed quite a bit since I first started writing it, mostly because I’ve changed quite a bit too. What began as a place for me to write about herbal medicine has grown alongside my education, my research, and whatever happens to have taken over my brain that week. I’m sure it’ll keep changing as I do.
For now, I’m very happy you found your way here. Read something, learn something, disagree with me occasionally, and come nerd out with me!
I sure hope you’ll learn a thing or two here,
— Agy | The Buffalo Herbalist & The Herbal Academic
P.S. I also have a sister publication called The Herbal Academic! That’s my little corner for everything happening behind the scenes of my academic life: papers I’m reading, bits of my doctoral work, things I’m learning, and occasional updates on whatever bigger project has taken over my desk.
It’s a little nerdier, a little more personal, and much closer to the pile of papers currently threatening to consume my office. Feel free to come hang out over there, too!
