Mary Kay Ryan has a degree from the University of Chicago in medical anthropology and a graduate degree from De Paul University in Chicago in the history of medicine. She graduated from the Midwest Center for the Study of Oriental Medicine in the early 1980’s and did advanced training in Chinese medicine at the Chengdu College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (PRC) in 1987.
She was one of the founders of the AIDS Alternative Health Project (1987) and the Northside HIV Treatment Center (1991) in Chicago and co-authored Treating AIDS with Chinese Medicine (Pacific Press 1994). She has taught Chinese medicine in Chicago, Ireland and London and has been a regular speaker on Chinese medicine in the United States and Europe. She has also written a text book on Chinese herbal medicine, has contributed to a textbook on the energetics of western herbal medicine and has written numerous articles on Chinese medicine published in the UK and the United States.
She served as the Chair of Herbal Medicine at the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in Chicago from 1997 – 2006 and served as the past Director of Clinical Services at Pacific College, and the past Dean of Chinese Medicine at the Chicago College of the Healing Arts. She cofounded and directed an alternative medicine program at the American Indian Center in Chicago and is the co-director and founder of the Alternative Medicine Project for Veterans in the Chicago area that offers Chinese medicine free of charge to Veterans and their family members.
She was a founding faculty member and clinical supervisor at Pacific College Chicago Campus from 1999 to 2011. Currently she is working on a book on the preparation and use of topical preparations in Chinese medicine and another on Facial Diagnosis. She also writes and teaches frequently on the relationship between medicine and spirituality.
She has an article on Daoism, Shamanism and Chinese Medicine coming out in the Journal of Daoist Studies 2011. She is in the process of creating a curriculum called “Herbs for the People” to reintroduce the use of non-professional herbalism into local Chicago communities. She and has a private practice utilizing traditional Chinese medicine and shamanism in Oak Park Illinois.