Faculty
Jayagopal Parla, BAMS, Masters in Ayurveda, MAOM, FAIHM, C-IAYT
Fall 1980 - Fall 2120
Ayurveda Medicine Department
Jayagopal@scuhs.edu
Current Position
Biography
Vaidya Jayagopal Parla (Jay) is an internationally known speaker, educator, and practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine and yoga with extensive clinical, and teaching experience over 25 years. Jay holds a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) from Bangalore University, India, and a MD degree in Ayurvedic medicine with a specialty in herbal medicine from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, India. Throughout his Ayurvedic studies, he spent extensive time learning herbs and visiting local tribes and villages to learn more about ethnobotanical medicine’s practical applications in health promotion as well as for treating various diseases.
His longing to learn more herbs took him to Chinese medicine and he also completed Master of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine program at Southern California University of Health Sciences. He is a certified yoga therapist and completed a yoga teacher training program at the Bihar School of Yoga. He also recently completed Fellowship in Integrative Medicine. He is the Founder and Director of Athreya Ayurvedic Integrative Health Center, Long Beach; and Founder and Vice President of Athreya Herbs, a U.S.-based provider of Ayurvedic herbal formulations. He teaches at Southern California University of Health Sciences and provides clinical services at the university health center, Whittier. He is also a faculty member at various Ayurvedic institutions in US and serves as a visiting faculty member at the Japan School of Ayurvedic Medicine. His additional work on behalf of complementary and alternative medical approaches includes extensive travel to various countries to propagate the growth of Ayurveda and numerous presentations on Ayurvedic medicine at various national and international conferences. He is passionate about inspiring and empowering individuals, families, and communities to live long healthy life. He believes that healing is complete only when an individual is positively motivated to make healthy choices and aspires to thrive in life.
Degrees
FAIHM
MAOM
Masters-Ayurveda
C-IAYT
BAMS
Hear from the Students Who’ve Been in Your Shoes
I chose SCU when looking for a PA program because of their Integrative Medicine approach. I am from Michigan, and not many programs focus on this Integrative, Holistic approach when it comes to patient care in the Midwest, and I felt that was very important for me to learn as a future provider. My transition to semi-virtual learning has been very smooth and quite enjoyable. [su_accordion][su_spoiler title="Read More..." open="No"]My favorite part about attending SCU is how tight-knit and diverse the community is. Coming from a large undergrad university and moving so far, it was very important for me to have a PA program that made me feel valued and invested in my success. At SCU, they do a great job of making you feel that.[/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]
Brianna Hadley
MSPA Class of 2022
One of the great things about SCU is we do have a campus layout, so all your classes aren't in a single room. We have our cadaver lab. We have different specialty rooms for physical assessment classes vs. acupuncture classes. All our acupuncture-specific classes have all the herbs in the room. You can pull out the herbs and look at them, whether in class or in between classes to get that extra studying in.[su_accordion][su_spoiler title="Read More..." open="No"]My favorite part of SCU is the collaboration from our beginning terms. We were working alongside chiropractor students, PA students, and ayurvedic students. It's a unique community where we get to learn about these different fields and sit in classrooms with them and work with them in the clinic. It allows you to get an understanding of all the different fields and how they can work together, and what is unique about your field. I think that is a wonderful aspect that I didn't think was going to be as prominent as it is here; even now, in my upper term classes and I am not in class with chiropractic students, I can still reach out to them about a certain aspect I may not understand or if I am working on a case. I want another perspective I know I have them to reach out to, so that has been a great networking community to have resources for.[/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]
Dr. Jamie Kuljis
Graduate, Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine
"There are a lot of things that I love about the program at SCU. The first one is that the faculty come from a long line of Ayurvedic knowledge deeply rooted in ancient classical text. They studied Ayurveda, but they also lived it. When you learn from people who embody this wisdom, it's much easier to grasp this knowledge. The second thing I love is the camaraderie within the cohort. The combination of the training, supportive faculty, and the support of my peers and classmates has given me the confidence I need to start my own practice."
Portia Harris
Student, Ayurveda Program
Some of my favorite courses at SCU have to be the chiropractic procedure classes; those are the classes you get to hone in on your chiro skills, your palpation skills and ultimately work on the adjustments that make you a chiropractor. Those are the classes I feel enhance my knowledge the most and are some of the reasons I chose to become a chiropractor here are SCU.[su_accordion][su_spoiler title="Read More..." open="No"]On top of chiropractic procedures classes, my favorite is the cadaver lab experience. The cadaver classes opened up my perception of what the human body is made up of. It allowed me to get an in-person perspective of how the body works and looks on the inside. I am genuinely thankful for those experiences because they opened and broadened my horizons to the human body and anatomy in general.[/su_spoiler][/su_accordion]
Jordan Vega
Student, Doctor of Chiropractic
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