Dr. Tafur has been an Integrative Medicine activist throughout his medical career, while in medical school at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, and during his Family Medicine Residency at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). After residency, Dr. Tafur completed a two-year Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at the UCSD Department of Psychiatry.

After this research fellowship, Dr. Tafur continued work as a Family Physician in the U.S., and then eventually started his work in the Peruvian Amazon. In 2011, he helped to found Nihue Rao Centro Espiritual, a traditional healing center in the Peruvian Upper Amazon. At Nihue Rao, Dr. Tafur underwent traditional apprenticeship in Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine and Shipibo curanderismo.

After years dedicated to his work in the forest, in 2017, Dr. Tafur stepped down as a business partner at Nihue Rao, in order to focus on new projects. In March of 2017, he published his book The Fellowship of the River: A Medical Doctor’s Exploration into Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine about his unique journey into spiritual healing work.