Ray Rubio, DAOM, LAc, FABORM
Esteemed Emperor’s College DAOM Alum, Raymond E. Rubio, DAOM, LAc, FABORM, a pioneer in the field of integrative medical fertility treatment, died on March 4, 2017 at the age of 55 following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Until shortly before his death, Dr. Rubio served as the Executive Director of the American Board of Oriental Reproductive Medicine (ABORM), the certification organization he founded in 2007, and continued to fulfill his role as Chair of the Reproductive Medicine Department, and related doctoral program, at Los Angeles-based Yo San University. Dr. Rubio also ran a private practice in Westlake Village, California.
Over the course of two decades passionately practicing Chinese medicine, Ray emerged as a leader in the treatment of male and female reproductive disorders. According to Katherine Alexander Anderson, current President of ABORM, , “Ray truly was a visionary. He conceived a way to provide better care for fertility patients and became a formative advocate for them, as well as practitioners worldwide, through both his direct teaching and the reaches of the ABORM board. He was a mentor to so many in our field.It is amazing how one man spread so much awareness”.
As with many innovative visionaries, Dr. Rubio’s efforts to create board certification for Chinese medical practitioners in the field of reproductive medicine was initially met with resistance. But his tenacity in elevating education, training, and overall standards for acupuncturists in this niche paid off. Dr. Rubio led the successful effort to establish a fellowship program that merged the biomedical science of reproduction with the principles of Chinese medicine, and a standardized examination was created and first administered in 2008. Today, ABORM certification represents the highest standard for Chinese medical infertility practitioners.
Born Ramón Ernesto Rubio on February 21, 1962, in Riverside California, Ray spent most of the next 12 years in foster care before being permanently placed with his aunt, Nancy Lowry, in Santa Ana, CA. Ray graduated college from UCLA in 1987, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. Following graduation, he became a trainee at the William Morris agency in Beverly Hills, working his way up to an assistant role for a major television literary agent. Sometime during this period he took an interest in Chinese medicine, an interest originally piqued by a long-time martial arts practice. He eventually enrolled at Samra University in Los Angeles, graduating in 1996 with a Masters Degree in Traditional Oriental Medicine. Dr. Rubio enthusiastically continued his education afterwards; he was a personal student of John F. Shen, a master of pulse diagnostics.
Dr. Rubio began his practice at the Golden Cabinet in West Los Angeles, and in 1997 Dr. Rubio and Christopher Reed opened a joint practice, Traditional Healing Arts Center, in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles. He continued to practice there until moving to Westlake Village in 2006, where he established Westlake Complementary Medicine. By this time Dr. Rubio was focused exclusively on fertility, and regularly collaborated with notable MD’s including Rick Buyalos, Gary Huber, and Ashim Kumar, to effectively increase patient’s ability to conceive children using Chinese medicine alongside western reproductive therapies.
From 2000-2006, Ray helped to create and administer the acupuncture program at the Toluca Lake Health Center (now the Eberstein Center), an integrative clinic operated under the Motion Picture and Television Fund. He worked at both locations, and taught and supervised clinic interns at Emperor’s College in Santa Monica, California. In 2004, Dr. Rubio entered the newly formed doctoral program at Emperor’s, receiving his Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (DAOM) degree in 2006.
Dr. Rubio, is survived by his daughter Savannah Grace Rubio, 13, son Jesse Michael Rubio, 11, aunt Nancy Lowry, of Irvine, CA, a brother, Don Lowry of Littleton, CO, and sisters Connie Schmitz of Orange, CA, Cristina Rubio of London, UK, Monica Rubio of Miami, FL, and Victoria Rogers of Georgia.
Dr. Rubio’s family has announced that his celebration of life will be held at Duke’s Restaurant in Malibu, California on April 8, 2017 from 12:30-3:30 pm. The event is open to all of his former friends, colleagues, patients, and students, but the family requests RSVPs for attendance to be directed to rayrubiocelebration@gmail.com.
(Thank you to Katherine Alexander Anderson for providing us with the content for this announcement.)
