Chanchal Cabrera
MSc, FNIMH, RHT, (RH)AHG
Bio
Chanchal Cabrera is a medical herbalist and has been in clinical practice for 35 years with a specialty in holistic oncology. She is the author of Fibromyalgia: A Journey towards Healing and her latest book Holistic Cancer Care: An Herbal Approach to Preventing Cancer, Helping Patients Thrive during Treatment, and Minimizing the Risk of Recurrence, which launches in April 2023. She held the faculty chair in Botanical Medicine at the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine in New Westminster 2004-2016, and she publishes widely in professional journals and lectures internationally on medical herbalism, nutrition and health.
Chanchal is also a certified Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) practitioner, a certified Master Gardener and a certified Horticulture Therapist. Chanchal lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia where she and her husband manage Innisfree Farm and Botanic Garden, a 7-acre internationally registered botanic garden specializing in food and medicine plants, and where they host apprenticeships in sustainable food production and herbal medicine. The farm also hosts Gardens without Borders, a federally registered not-for-profit society established to run the botanic garden and provide horticulture therapy.
- Member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists (UK) since 1987. Awarded Fellowship 2009
- MSc in herbal medicine at the University of Wales in 2003
- Faculty chair in Botanical Medicine at the Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine 2004 - 2016
- Senior faculty at Heartwood School of Herbal Medicine (UK) 2017 - present
- Diplomas in Botanic Garden Management and Education from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew 2013 & 2014
- Certified Shinrin Yoku (forest bathing) practitioner 2016
- Certified Master Gardener 1999
- Certified Horticulture Therapist 2005
- BC representative to the Canadian Council of Herbalist Associations 2019 – present
Show Notes
Chanchal Cabrera is one of the leading forces in Herbal Clinical Oncology in Canada, and likely the world. In this episode, she reveals the motivation and 35 years of clinical experience that allowed her to birth her new book “Holistic Cancer Care”. Chanchal speaks of her unique upbringing in Wales and her dedication to, and the evolution of, her training. From watching her father pick and make his own medicine to working with Tibetan Refugees, to formal training in Herbal Medicine in 1983, Chanchal details how this informed her interests early on and led her to pursue a career in clinical herbalism. Her aptitude for academics and education further was proven through completing her Masters of Science and Herbal Medicine at the University of Wales and her apprenticeship with Donnie Yance in Oregon. Â
In this episode, Chanchal discusses how she was drawn to cancer care and what ignited the beginning of her cancer practice.
“I apprenticed myself effectively after 15 years as a clinician, I went back and apprenticed myself to Donnie for two years. And he had me doing research in his clinic about long term survivors of breast cancer that were under his care. And the response of the patients was so profound for me, I was like, Oh, my goodness, some of these people actually still had cancer, 10 years out, but they were living well. And so my dissertation in the end was called Living with breast cancer. And it was literally about long term survivors of breast cancer and what they had taken to get there, and how they were coping, and so a lot of quality of life measurements, very inspiring, very educational. And consequently, subsequently, I ended up specializing in cancer care in my practice. And that has been almost 20 years now”
 Chanchal acknowledges the complexity of the world of oncology, and how many practitioners and doctors are weary of diving in with patients, even around other aspects of the patient's health while they are undergoing treatment.Â
 “These days, Karley, mostly referrals from other practitioners, because for better or worse, cancer, despite it being so incredibly prevalent, is still very scary for a lot of practitioners”
“And of course, just because you have cancer doesn't mean you don't have a bunch of other things going on”
She reviews the importance of patient centered medicine, and a collaborative approach.
“When it's collaborative, what it is saying is the patient is in the middle, and all the therapeutic disciplines and care and support around that person are all about that individual in the center. So theoretically, ideally, there would be a round table. And you would have the oncologist, the nurse practitioner, the care attendant, the family members, the herbalist, the spiritual healer, all of these players would be in the room with the patient, to all offer their best support to help each other to help the patient better. That's the ideal”
Chanchal provides permission to take a pause when one initially receives a diagnosis and discusses the importance of setting up the terrain to optimize treatments and healing.
“So a lot of the time, what I'm suggesting to patients in the first instance of diagnosis is to take a deep breath, take a step back and don't make any decisions for at least a month. Because after all, once you get diagnosed, that cancer has probably been there for at least a few years. Two to five years is not uncommon.”
“Typically, we have some time to get our head around the diagnosis, and to come up with a game plan to come up with some strategies to tolerate whatever else is going to happen. If you're going to do surgery, then you want to take a month before surgery to prep your body and be ready for it. If you go to do chemo, you want to take time to learn how to succeed at chemo, and how to make chemo tolerable and even more effective. That doesn't happen overnight, you can't do that research and put those plans in place in an instant. So a lot of the time in my clinic, when I have a newly diagnosed patient, I'm the one saying slow down, just slow down a little bit, you have time to figure it out and get it right. Because otherwise, you jump into treatment, it didn't turn out to be the best choice, and now you've got to undo that damage and try to fix that problem.”
Further, in our discussion, we review what the most challenging part of the book was to write, the unprecedented review of the cytotoxic herbs that she has used in the clinic for 20 years treating cancer. Chanchal details how she came to learn these herbs and use them safely and successfully. She speaks to how difficult it was to translate the research for this book from the eclectic measurements of drams/drachms to modern day dispensing units.
“The research was actually very, very difficult. And then of course, when I was looking at the dosing, because I have given dosing to every herb, and boy oh boy, when you've got dosing from 150 years ago, and it's in drams/drachms and minimums and grains, and I'm like, Oh, brother, how big is a grain anyway, so I had to calculate from those old old apothecary weights into milligrams and micrograms. And then I had to try and figure out how much of that was in the herb”
To close our discussion Chanchal provides her top tips as to how to start to address a new diagnosis, what can be done, and the in-depth resource that is her new book. This conversation is a complete gem, and I felt honored not only to have spent this hour with Chanchal Cabrera but to have the platform to elevate the brave, brilliant and groundbreaking voice that is leading the way in Herbal Oncology. Thank you Chanchal for your contributions to humanity and our wellbeing.
Luv
KarleyÂ
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Socials & Offerings:
Chanchal is delighted to extend an invitation to practitioners and advanced students of herbal medicine to participate in a five day case studies intensive which she is co-facilitating with David Winston at her home and teaching gardens on Vancouver Island.Â
To connect with Chanchal and learn about continuing education opportunities.
Website: chanchalcabrera.comÂ
Facebook: facebook.com/chanchal.cabreraÂ
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To learn about Innisfree Farm
instagram.com/innisfreefarm.botanicgarden/
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Charity of choice: United Plant SaversÂ
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