 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Here's what our members are saying about us...
"In late February, the local CBS affiliate ran a 3 minute "public interest" (?) story on 2 women that feel they were injured by a chiropractic adjustment. While my patients trust me and what I do to be safe, like most chiropractic patients, they needed help talking to friends and family members about the safety and effectiveness of their choice to continue getting adjusted.
Less than 2 weeks after the TV story, the In Touch Newsletter arrived at my door with its lead article being a review of the Spine article showing no statistical connection between chiropractic adjustments and stroke. I loved it. It is displayed prominently in my office."
Dr. Tim Knight
Arlington, MA
"Voice For Health is so well received - patients ask for them. It is a wonderful publication, entertaining and informative in the right kind of language."
Dr. Gerald Arndt
Coshocton, OH
"Thanks for your commitment to the cause and your great Voice For Health publication over the years."
Dr. Robson Timbs
Malvern, South Australia
"Continuous patient education is a MUST. The problem is, how do you do this and keep it fresh, interesting, and informative all at the same time? That’s where Dr. Kim Stetzel’s WEEKLY HANDOUTS Program comes in! She’s done the work. She’s created interesting and informative, full color handouts. All you have to do is put them in your patient’s hands and let the handouts speak for themselves! I highly recommend this program for anyone who is interested in growing and maintaining a Lifetime Family Wellness practice."
Dr. George Auger
Greenville, SC
"What a great program. With our busy schedule, we didn’t always get time to put out regular patient education. Now, we just print out quality, full color, professional looking handouts on our color printer each week. WOW! thanks for taking the work out of consistent patient education."
Drs. Kevorkian & Giuliano
Westwood, MA
|
|
|
|
 |
DC Practice Market's Blog
DC Practice Market
| Friday, Oct 15, 2010 |
| Innate Adaptability |
| By Greg Stetzel, D.C. |
| Friday, Oct 15, 2010 11:35 |
This article appeared in the October 2004 issue of Wellness Bound Magazine. Its message remains pertinent today.
As I sit here writing this article, the nation is remembering the collapse of the World Trade Towers and preparing for landfall of a category five hurricane somewhere along the eastern coast. Had the towers never been attacked and remained standing today, the impending storm would probably not be a significant worry for the world's tallest building, which had been designed to structurally withstand the strongest winds known.
Listening to the national news and weather reports, I hear that people up and down the coast are hurrying to buy cement and plywood to reinforce their homes against the possible winds and waters of the hurricane, protecting roofs and windows as best they can. History tells us that these sudden makeshift repairs seldom prevent the most severe damage when the foundation that the house was built on is not sound to begin with. Inevitably, there will be buildings damaged, homes destroyed, and lives lost as the force of the storm impacts the land. The forces of nature can be unrelenting and the ability of wood, cement, and seal to resist these forces is finite. How different are our bodies?
Our bodies, fortunately, are imbued with adaptability. Our frame and supporting structures possess all the physical characteristics of the inanimate materials that we are composed of, yet there is more to us than just the physical materials from which we are made. There is an extra something within and about us that makes us different. It animates and coordinates us and gives our body its incredible adaptability.
A structure alone does not provide the answer to the puzzle of how we are able to resist the forces that bombard our bodies every day. In fact, taken alone, most of the structures upon which we rely for strength and support could not individually accomplish what they do as part of the human body.
Take the human foot for example. Examining the bones of the foot, you would be impressed by the delicate nature of the tiny bones that make up the foot and ankle, yet when they are held together with the muscles, tendon, cartilage, and skin of the foot, the structure at the end of your leg is capable of absorbing and utilizing incredible forces. Each step results in hundreds of pounds of pressure on the foot and its structures. Run or jump and the forces are multiplied, yet the bone does not break unless the forces overcome the ability of your foot to adapt.
There is a difference between the individual physical structures of the foot and the foot itself. In fact, there is a difference between the human body, or the body of any living thing for that matter, and the integrity of the materials from which it is built.
Unlike a building or a stone or a board, a living body has an extra ingredient. It is an ingredient that cannot be weighed. It has no mass, no structure of its own, no substance that could be held or observed, yet it is the key ingredient which gives life its ability to produce more than the physical sum of its parts.
The extra ingredient is intelligence. The major premise of chiropractic philosophy, the key philosophical idea upon which all the rest of our system of beliefs is built, is that there is a universal intelligence which gives to matter all of its properties and actions, thus maintaining it in existence.
In other words, all things are involved in active self-organization at all times. Life is no exception to this universal striving to maintain organization and existence. In fact, one could argue that the objective of a living thing to remain in its self-organized state that we see as a living thing is a higher expression of intelligence than that of a rock in maintaining itself.
We call this higher expression of intelligence that creates and maintains life innate intelligence. The innate is the essence of life. It is the intelligence that tells a seed, when it germinates, that the leaves grow up and the roots grow down. It is the intelligence that, in the process of fertilization of the egg by the sperm, sets up the blueprint for what that organism will look like.
The body is able to create the internal forces that help it to resist the destructive forces of the universe which would otherwise reduce it to a non-living lump of decomposing matter, rapidly returning to the state of its basic elements. The body, through innate intelligence, is able to adapt destructive forces and convert them to creative internal resistive forces maintaining the balance to the side of life.
Think of the effects of gravity. Gravity is one of the forces that helps to reduce a mountain to a hill and a hill to a plain. The effect of gravity on the body could be very similar if it were not for the innate intelligence. As gravity pulls the body down, effectively holding you to the ground, it gives the body weight. It is the innate intelligence that adapts the body to the force of gravity and utilizes it.
So long as the internal resistive forces are greater than the external invasive forces, the body is able to maintain itself in existence. When the external forces become too great and the innate intelligence cannot adapt the body to it, the process of degeneration begins. The first step in this process is the creation of the vertebral subluxation: misalignment of the spine resulting in interference to the function of the nervous system and of further loss to the adaptability of the body.
Chiropractic seeks to locate, analyze, and correct vertebral subluxation in the spine before the body's adaptability is overcome and the degeneration of life has progressed beyond repair. When vertebral subluxations are corrected and nerve system function is restored, innate intelligence is better able to create and express the adaptability that is so essential to life. The foundation is restored.
The chiropractic approach to maintaining life's expression in the body is to keep the spine free of vertebral subluxation. In doing so, the body's ability to adapt is optimized. Life and health are maximized and the body is better able to defend itself against the stresses inherent in the environment and to adapt its environment to the benefits of survival.
The rain may fall and the wind my blow as the hurricanes in our lives move through and as each moment passes, but our innate intelligence will adapt us to the stresses that come and will help us grow from them. Life is an endless cycle of adaptation and growth under the direction of innate intelligence. Chiropractic care helps keep the foundation of your life intact and solid. Free of subluxation, you will be ready to weather the storm.
|
|
DC Practice Market's website |
|
Permalink Digg this Add to del.icio.us Submit to Reddit
|
| Wednesday, Aug 18, 2010 |
| Balance or Bias? |
| By Gregory Stetzel, D.C. |
| Wednesday, Aug 18, 2010 11:59 |
Have you ever noticed that the media always goes to great lengths to provide balance and to present both sides of the story when reporting on chiropractic? In the interest of bringing the whole story to their readers or viewers, they will invariably locate and interview a medical doctor who will contradict everything that the chiropractor in the article has to say. They claim that they are just trying to present the truth.
Perhaps you have had the experience of being invited to participate in a news story or interview with the media as a representative for chiropractic in your community. You did your homework and prepared your message. You met with the reporter who was very nice and who seemed interested in your point of view and the volume of information that you presented to back up your statements about the efficacy of chiropractic care in helping to optimize health. And then, the article came out and you found yourself reading things you never said or that had been taken completely out of context. Or worse, they printed just what you said and followed up with the local medical doctor who refuted your every word and tainted the article with the sense that chiropractic was dangerous and scientifically unfounded. Was it balance or bias?
A recent internet article from KETV.com is a case in point. You can see the article here. The author doesn't even wait to get into the discussion to throw the first punch. He makes the intent of the article clear in the heading:
"Chiropractor Touts Work On Newborns"
"Pediatrician Says Spinal Adjustments On Children 'Unnecessary'"
How's that for balance?
The pediatrician provided only one quarter of the text of the piece and claimed that children will get better eventually on their own regardless of intervention so chiropractic is probably unnecessary, particularly if the good parent makes sure they are getting appropriate medical care. Yet his statement headlines the article as if it were about him and his belief. The fact that the chiropractor actually presents his case fairly well and that a satisfied patient is interviewed and supports his position with her choice to have her children adjusted is lost in the title. Unfortunately, there are people who only read the headline and make their minds up from that -- another life lost to ignorance.
Since our society places so much trust in the word of the media and spends such an inordinate amount of time watching the news, reading newspapers, surfing the internet, and blogging, we cannot ignore their influence and must find a way to participate that supports our cause and represents our profession in a positive and beneficial manner. It is our responsibility to carefully choose our venue and protect our image and that of our profession every time we venture into the media.
To be fair, there are some good, honest journalists out there who are willing to publish articles based on facts or well formed interviews. Yet, the fact remains that controversy sells print and many journalists function under the credo that if you don't smell smoke -- light a match. So, vigilance is key.
Vigilance may not be as simple as it would seem when it comes to working with the media. In most cases a reporter/journalist approaches you to be included in an interview about the benefits of chiropractic care for this or that and presents it as an opportunity to let the local community find out about you and your service. They usually make no mention of their intent to "balance" the piece with rebuttal from the local MD who they view as the true authority in the health arena. It is up to you to guard your reputation and take the necessary precautions to see that your message doesn't get hijacked.
A few simple steps can go a long way toward protecting yourself but be forewarned. If you insist on maintaining control of your message, you may lose some opportunities while you retain your dignity.
When contacted by a media representative with the offer of a lifetime to present your story, inform them that you will only participate if they agree to your terms. First, and perhaps most importantly, you want a guarantee that you will have final, pre-publication approval of the finished article before it is released. You want this guarantee in writing and signed by someone in authority who is able to assure you that your terms will be met. You also want the right to 'kill' the piece if they take it in a direction that is damaging to your reputation or to the profession, also in writing. Ask the representative if they will be presenting an opposing viewpoint and if so who they will be interviewing. If they are bringing in someone you know to be negative on chiropractic, object and refuse to participate if they will not present you in a positive manner. After all, you have nothing to lose but your reputation.
BJ once said that he didn't care what they said about him in the newspapers so long as they spelled his name right. While exposure can be a good thing for you, your practice, and your profession, setting yourself up for a loss makes little sense. If nothing else, make sure they spell your name right.
|
|
DC Practice Market's website |
|
Permalink Digg this Add to del.icio.us Submit to Reddit
|
| |
Tell a Friend About Us!
