Faculty
Ruth A McCarty, DACM, L.Ac.
Fall 1980 - Fall 2120
Eastern Medicine Department
RuthMcCarty@scuhs.edu
Current Position
Biography
Dr. Ruth McCarty practices Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) delivering Integrative Care to residents of Orange County from infancy to adulthood. Dr. McCarty has spent her career working to integrate these methods into Western medical institutions to maximize the healing and comfort process for patients. This care is continued in her private practice, Open Mind Modalities, with locations in Aliso Viejo and Orange California. Today, she serves as the Clinical Director of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Program at CHOC Children’s Hospital of Orange County in California. She co-founded this program with her husband, neurosurgeon William Loudon, M.D., Ph.D. She is currently participating in two clinical in patient trials at CHOC. She also serves as an associate faculty member at Southern California of Health Sciences(SCU) in the College of Eastern Medicine in Whittier California. Ruth began the Traditional Chinese Medicine Internship Program at CHOC Children’s in 2015. Choc and SCU partner in the clinical training of TCM doctorate candidates.
Dr. McCarty earned her Doctorate Degree of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine(PCOM) in San Diego, California and completed internships at PCOM and at the San Diego Hospice Inpatient Care Center. She completed fellowships in pediatrics and internal medicine at the Traditional Chinese Medicine University Hospital, Jinan, Shandong Province, China. Dr. McCarty has participated in medical missions to India, the Dominican Republic and Kenya.
Degrees
D.Ac., Doctor of Acupuncture Chinese Medicine, Pacific College of Health and Science, San Diego, California, United States
B.F.A., Studio Art , University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, United States
Professional Licensures (Healthcare)
LAc, California, United States, 7963, Active, 2001, January 2025, 1912145772
Hospital / Clinical Appointments
Clinical Director of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine , Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) May 2002, PRESENT

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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