The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy is devoted to teaching about barefoot doctoring, the art and science of midwifery, and sustainable agriculture. The classes are designed for healers of all backgrounds and levels of experience, from moms and dads to doctors and nurses. Our campus is located in Hawi, Hawaii—that’s in North Kohala of the Big Island! Our programs include Barefoot Doctors’ Training, an Introduction to Midwifery with Doula Certification, Herbal Medicine, Wilderness First Responder Certification, Healing Gardens Sanctuary Internships, Emergency Preparedness Team-Building & ‘Rapid Response”, private midwifery tutoring, and more. At the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy, one of our goals is to provide you with quality education presented by experts on the subject. HISTORY
The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy was first founded in 1983 by Dee Anne Domnick under the name, Birth Rite Education Center (BREC). Dee Anne first began offering classes in natural healing and midwifery in Lacombe, Louisiana, where she incorporated it as a non-profit organization. In 1988, BREC co-sponsored and organized an international midwifery convention of the Midwives’ Alliance of North America (MANA) in New Orleans. This brought together hundreds of midwifery educators, practitioners, students, consumers, and others from the United States, Central America and Canada to promote understanding, training and coalition building in the area of midwifery, which contributed to the ability to legally practice midwifery in Louisiana in that same year. In 1993, Dee Anne Domnick and Jim Berg joined together, both in marriage and as a dynamic academic and clinical duo. It was at this time that Dr. Jim Berg joined the BREC board of directors and its academic faculty. Clinically, Jim and Dee Anne worked as a team at what was then known as “the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy”, the name of which Jim had coined the year previously for the clinical practice, which also included patient education as a basis for achieving clinical changes in their patients. Birth Rite Education Center, as an educational non-profit, served to augment the more clinically oriented, Barefoot Doctors’ Academy. Faced with an inevitable name change requested of Birth Rite Education Center, BREC changed its name officially on January 1, 1999, to The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy (BFDA). At that point, Jim and Dee Anne forever let go of private use of that name for their clinic. The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy became the new name for the non-profit, educational organization. Our 501(c)(3) status was granted in 1996, enabling us to accept tax-deductible donations as an educational charity, which helped to further accomplish our visions and goals. That same year, our midwifery program was one of the first schools in North America to be nationally accredited by the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council (MEAC). Since its inception, the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy has taught thousands of classes as well as coordinated the establishment of a series of grassroots, complimentary healthcare centers, serving thousands of people seeking safe and effective natural healing remedies and childbirth options. BFDA administrated multidisciplinary teams of healers, doctors and midwives, who together provided holistic treatment plans and weekly healthcare education classes to the public and other healthcare professionals. The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy relocated to Hawi, Hawaii in 2002, where its teaching traditions have continued at a variety of locations on the Big Island. In 2005, the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy branched out and assisted Louisiana and Mississippi with much needed rapid and continued response (for 15 months) to victims of Hurricanes Katrina & Rita. The BFDA was recognized by FEMA (the Federal Bureau of Emergency Response) as the ONLY non-profit organization responding with a primary focus of aiding pregnant mothers, neonates, families with young children and the disabled. That huge project brought notoriety to BFDA’s expertise in, and training for, emergency services. In Hawaii in 2006 the Barefoot Doctor’ Academy was a key rapid responder immediately following the 6.3 earth quake that rocked its home island. The development of a BFDA Emergency Response Program for the District of North Kohala followed and an ‘emergency response’ team training program was added to its curriculum. In 2009, Dee Anne and Jim donated the use of their private, 7.8-acre botanical healing sanctuary to the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy, which allotted for the addition of agricultural internship programs on the land with a classroom and traveling library in their 30-foot yurt, where most of the indoor classes are currently held. The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy offers various workshops, programs and conferences, and serves to educate people from a diversity of cultural backgrounds in the ways of community medicine, natural healing, indigenous and traditional medicine, midwifery, breastfeeding, family planning, wilderness medicine, barefoot doctoring, ethnobotany, permaculture, emergency preparedness & response, and sustainability. The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy designs and oversees a variety of certification programs. In 2013, a 4000-book specialty library was again made available specifically for BFDA interns. The Barefoot Doctors’ Academy continues to provide education and services on the Big Island of Hawaii. Browse our Website for more information about the Barefoot Doctors’ Academy. If you have any questions or would like to speak with a Barefoot Doctors’ Academy representative regarding our classes, internships, or about our specialty library, please e-mail us at barefootmd@aol.com or call us at (808) 987-7008.
