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Newsletter of the European Chiropractors’ Union
People
Making a commitment
In the mid-1990s, when the Anglo-European College of Chiropractic (AECC) was one of very
few places in Europe where you could study to join the profession, three young men moved to
Bournemouth, UK to join the AECC’s first five-year Masters in Chiropractic cohort.
VASILEIOS
GKOLFINOPOULOS
was a former Greek water polo
champion who had studied sports
science. Rishi Loatey was a London
teenager who, by chance, met and
observed a chiropractor at work
and changed all his education
plans. And Jan Geert Wagenaar had
been a professional footballer and
a qualified physiotherapist in the
Netherlands before he decided that
chiropractic was more effective!
From three very different lives, they
were drawn together by a common
desire to become chiropractic
health care professionals.
Their names are, of course,
very familiar. These three, who all
graduated from AECC in 1999, are
now the ECU’s President, Treasurer
and Vice-president respectively.
How was it that they came together
as a formidable Executive team
after two decades building their
separate lives and careers?
The power of making a
career change
Being flexible enough to change
your mind, or your direction,
when better information presents
itself, is one of the attributes the
Executive team members share.
When Vas arrived at AECC, he
had never received a chiropractic
adjustment! But when he was a
child, his father would regularly
travel 200km to Athens to see a
chiropractor: “I clearly remember
how my dad used to rave about how
fine he was after each treatment”. A
few years later, as a member of the
Greek national youth water polo
team, Vas sustained a bad shoulder
injury: “I received really bad care
from the team physician and ended
up with surgery - my shoulder never
recovered, and it ended my career. I
was a student of sports science, but
that experience made me want to
change to musculoskeletal health
care. I went to the UK, toured a
range of osteopathy, physiotherapy
and medical schools, but chose
AECC, where I felt very much
at home because of childhood
experience.”
Rishi too, as a teenager, decided
to change his career path when he
discovered chiropractic: “Coming
from a typical Asian background,
I didn’t want to do medicine
so thought I’d study economics
and work in the city. By chance,
through my family’s business, I
met chiropractor Robert Bridges,
and ended up observing him and
also another chiropractor, Brian
Hammond, at work. As a result, I
changed my A levels from maths,
economics, geography and French
to maths, biology and chemistry
and went down to AECC! There
were very few of us then who
came straight from school – and it
changed my life.”
Jan Geert didn’t so much change
his career as add chiropractic to
it: “During my active years as a
professional footballer I also went
through my physiotherapy studies.
I incurred a back injury, and
managed to keep playing while I
was injured, though not helped
by several visits to the team’s
sports doctor, physiotherapist and
manual therapist. But two visits
with my mothers’ chiropractor got
me fit and fully recovered and on
my way to chiropractic college.”
Learning to lead
All three have felt the need to be
part of the guiding forces behind
the profession. Having become
successful chiropractors, running
businesses and raising families
in their home countries, all have
also represented chiropractors in
various executive roles at national
and European level.
Vas was president of the Greek
Chiropractic Association for 14
years and served eight as treasurer
to the ECU before becoming its
president. However, he insists,
you have to understand what it
is to be a follower first: “In order
to become a leader, you to need
to understand the other side
and know how it feels to be led.
That’s when you start figuring out
what kind of leader you would
prefer to be, so if you become
that leader, you know. I enjoyed
and learned a lot in my eight
years working next to Øystein
Ogre during his ECU presidency.
Leading is not easy, and most of
the time it’s lonely and stressful,
but it’s my way of giving back,
of improving things rather than
complaining about them.”
Rishi served on the BCA
Council for some years before
becoming ECU treasurer in
2018 while also running his own
multidisciplinary clinic and a
complementary medicine training
centre in West London. His aim
has always been to help people be
the best they can be – and that
includes not just patients but
chiropractic graduates and other
therapists too: “It’s important to
me to pass on the knowledge and
experience I have gained after 20
years in practice.”
A love for working as part of a
team, since his footballing days,
is crucial for Jan Geert’s view of
leadership: “ I served as Student
Union president during my time
at AECC, and spent six years
as president of the Netherlands
Chiropractic Association before
becoming ECU vice-president.
My love for working in a team
was cultivated in my years as
© Øistein Holm Haagensen
Vasileios Gkolfinopoulos
Rishi Loatey
Jan Geert Wagenaar
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