Content area
Full Text
Russia is undergoing tremendous change, politically, economically and socially and its health care delivery system is similarly affected by these changes. In the mid-1980s, there was growing concern on the part of officials and the public over the serious decline in the country's health and the low quality of medical services available to the general populace.
Reforms in the 1980s called for eliminating overbureaucratization of medical services, improving medical training and salaries, expanding fee-for-service care, and significantly increasing funding to improve the quality of health care nationwide. The '90s brought with them a tremendous struggle as some aspects of health care delivery began to enter the free market. As Russia undergoes this metamorphosis in health care, chiropractic is there as an integral part of this change.
Nearly 10 years ago, a prominent Russian businessman received a life-changing adjustment from a chiropractor in the United States and decided to share the miracle of chiropractic with others in his country.
In a letter to his partner in Russia, he wrote that the goal of the project would be to send chiropractors to Vladivostok "to train the Russian counterparts and cure the sick people."
Matthew McCoy, DC, was selected as a key player in the project and, for two years, lived and worked in Vladivostok to make the chiropractic convert's dream a reality. "Reading his letter excited me more than you can imagine," he stated. "He had a keen sense of the potential chiropractic held for his people, and throughout the projectile has remained committed to the goals which were originally dis- . cussed."
One of the project's goals was to build a world-class chiropractic treatment, teaching and research center in Vladivostok, to serve the people of Far Eastern Russia and attract patients, scientists and clinical experts from around the world. It took years of hard work, but Dr.
McCoy and his colleagues in Vladivostok more than met those goals. McCoy coordinated the entire project, including selecting a location, building the clinic, acquiring equipment, training staff and caring for patients. Because of these efforts the...