Former Newtowner Helps Bring Chiropractic To China

For the first time in history, chiropractic will be a profession in the People’s Republic of China, as a result of humanitarian efforts by several chiropractors, including Dr Lori Ugolik, a former Newtown resident who now has her own practice in Macon, Georgia.

Dr Ugolik recently served as a chiropractic/humanitarian ambassador, along with doctors Cory Rodnick and Steve Kern of the Michigan Chiropractic Council. The three American chiropractors, who volunteer for Life Around the World, flew to the city of Zigong in the Sichuan Province of China, where they adjusted several thousand patients between March 24 and April 6.

A graduate of St Rose School and Newtown High School, Dr Ugolik has volunteered her own time and finances to work in Costa Rica and Venezuela as well.

During this mission she worked in the People’s Number One Hospital and Foreign Language School in Zigong, a city with a population of 6 million. She and her colleagues were greeted by more than a dozen members of the press, as well as the governor of Chengdu, the mayor of Zigong, the Zigong Foreign Affairs office, as well as the entire administration of the People’s Number One Hospital and Foreign Language Schools.

The Chinese officials signed with Life Around the World, an international chiropractic organization that aids in legalizing chiropractic and implements chiropractic clinics in second and third world countries.

“Life Around the World is affiliated with Life University, the chiropractic college in Marietta, Georgia,” Dr Ugolik said. “It’s like Doctors Without Borders, bringing volunteer medical help around the world.”

As a result of her trip, Chinese medical doctors and two graduates who have English degrees will come to the United States to study chiropractic at Life University. They will then go back to their homeland to implement a chiropractic curriculum in Zigong University as well as in several hospitals. The officials will be visiting hospitals in Atlanta and Macon, Georgia, and Midland, Michigan, in several months.

“The residents were very receptive to chiropractic care,” Dr Ugolik said. “We adjusted everyone from surgeons to rice farmers. My most memorable experience was adjusting a lady with a spinal cord injury. I only adjusted her C1 and C2 [the first two vertebrae in her neck] and the translator explained how a subluxation [misalignment] in this area affects the entire brain and spinal cord. The Chinese could grasp the concept of chiropractic very quickly due to their experiences with holistic health.”

“Our translator explained there were no other chiropractors in China, and that we would be developing and implementing a curriculum and some clinics, but the training would take four years of graduate school similar to a medical doctor’s education, as well as implementing the laws within their political infrastructure,” Dr Ugolik said.

Getting an agreement to allow a clinic in China took the influence of Carl Chow, a Chinese-American engineer from Dow Chemical Company in Midland, Mich., who had gone to college in Shanghai with the Minister of Health.

“After five years of having a chiropractic research facility in Beijing, we were not able to develop a clinic due to rules and regulations within a socialist government,” Dr Ugolik explained. “Now, we finally transected the Communist government due to a connection my colleague had, [Carl Chow] who is a Chinese-American patient. He had accompanied us on the trip, and was instrumental advising us prior to the signing of the contract.”

Life Around the World also is affiliated with the World Health Organization, a fact that helped secure the agreement between the representatives of the two countries. LAW has established clinics in Costa Rica, Kenya, Senegal, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, and the Ukraine, and has the goal of establishing 63 clinics in second and third world countries.

 “With this credibility and our chiropractic’s past history of helping the masses, they signed the contract,” Dr Ugolik said. “It was a major breakthrough.”

“The need for chiropractic in a nation of 1.2 billion is essential,” she explained. “It is hard to believe in a country so overpopulated that there are no doctors of chiropractic for the residents. We have ‘planted the seed,’ so within the next seven to ten years, we should be able to develop programs at larger universities such as Beijing University and in the larger cities, such as Shanghai, to help millions.”

“This was an exciting day for our profession, for the United States and for China,” Dr Ugolik said. “We hope our humanitarian work will now transect and help heal our relations with China.”

Dr Ugolik is a graduate of Ohio University. She did graduate work at Florida State University, then transferred to Life University for another four years of study to become a doctor of chiropractic. She is the daughter of Gail and Stephen Ugolik of Cedar Hill Road, and the granddaughter of Robert and Beatrice Pitcher of Park Lane. 

“I was hoping to attend my 20-year Newtown High School reunion but it is bad timing,” she said. “I’ll be just getting back from Guatemala, where I will be working with athletes at the Central American Caribbean Games, and I also have a Life University reunion the same weekend.”