HEALTH COOPERATION with RUSSIA

Shortly following the fall of the Soviet Union, The Eurasian Medical Education Program of the American College of Physicians was established to make a contribution to the health challenge in Russia following seventy years of relative isolation of the Russian medical profession from Western medicine. Over the next 17 years, the program brought American physician experts to share medical scientific knowledge and contemporary standards of care with Russian practitioners. The program ultimately interacted with over 10,000 Russian physicians in 13 Russian regional academic medical centers across most of the eleven time zones of Russia. The 17-year period of the program of the program was notable for nearly constant political and economic turmoil in Russia and very volatile US-Russian relations. Against this environment, the Eurasian Medical Education Program not only performed unperturbed but with professional enthusiasm from the Russian medical establishment and leadership, proving again that health and medicine are outstanding instruments of engagement politically.