Developing Your Educational Resource Center

The reception room of any health professional is a reflection of the consciousness of their practice, yet too often it is a missed opportunity to unveil great learning opportunities. Enter a medical facility and, depending on their specialty, what do you find? Magazines (many outdated or with the home address of the staff left on the cover), stand-up pharmaceutical information and now even DVDs playing Big Pharma ads.

Fast forward to a chiropractor's office; many will have the same magazine situation, along with an assortment of pamphlets. However, the majority of DC practices fail to capitalize on the opportunity to use this space as a learning center for their patient community, making good on the promise of chiropractic care.

Here is the most current guide (as inclusive as possible) to transforming your reception room into a valuable resource center for anyone who walks in the door.

Multimedia

• Consider enhancing the patient experience by expanding into mixed media. Many practices have already invested in flat-screen televisions and are running looped PowerPoint messages. There are also definite benefits to running educational DVDs that bring audiovisual learning opportunities into play and often allow the patient to hear content not accessible at home. Some of my DVD recommendations include:
• "What Babies Want" is a documentary that "explores the profoundly important and sacred opportunity we have in bringing children into the world."
• "Nature, Nurture and the Power of Love" by Bruce Lipton, PhD, shows how "our pre- and perinatal experiences form a biological template, which colors subsequent feelings and attitudes about ourselves, our relationships and our connection to Earth and Spirit."
• "Autism: Made in the USA" is a "feature-length documentary exploring the causes and solutions for the recent epidemic of autism in our children. It includes interviews with leading experts on autism and presents a full spectrum of medical and scientific views, both orthodox and nontraditional."
• "The Living Matrix" - "Woven among interviews with the world's most respected experts in bioenergetic medicine and with dynamic 3-D graphic animation, this DVD takes the viewer on a journey deep into the structure of the human body to illustrate how quantum biology influences health."
• "Generation RX" is a video that reveals the "collusion between pharmaceutical manufacturers and their regulatory watchdogs at the FDA, and also questions whether we have forced pharmaceutical drugs onto millions of children for commercial rather than scientific reasons."
• "Welcoming Wellness" answers frequently asked questions such as why children need adjusting, the positive influences of chiropractic care for quality of life and more.
• Citizens Commission on Human Rights Videos - This organization has created some of the most compelling videos regarding the pharmaceutical industry's repeated creation and marketing of psychotropic drugs that are not helping, but instead harming the populace. Their videos include "Dead Wrong: How Psychiatric Drugs Can Kill Your Children," a new documentary "exposing how devastating - and deadly - psychiatric drugs can be for children and families"; "The Marketing of Madness: Are We All Insane?" the "definitive documentary on psychotropic drugging - this is the story of the high-income partnership between drug companies and psychiatry, which has created an $80 billion profit from the peddling of psychotropic drugs to an unsuspecting public"; and "Making a Killing: The Untold Story of Psychotropic Drugging," a "riveting documentary that rips the mask off psychiatric drugging and exposes a brutal but well-entrenched money-making machine."

Magazines

Here's my short list for a refreshing and targeted approach to educating wellness families. [Web links to all of the following magazines accompany the online version of this article.] To avoid a typical magazine selection, I recommend the first two suggestions below be ordered in bulk for patient handouts in your practice.

• Pathways - This quarterly magazine promotes the family wellness lifestyle and encourages parents to actively pursue living it consciously and daily with their family.
• To Your Health - This monthly magazine is great for covering all areas of health care in a more holistic approach.*
• Mothering Magazine
• Fit Pregnancy
• Living Without
• Kindred Magazine
• Inspired Parenting

*To Your Health is published by MPA Media, publisher of Dynamic Chiropractic.

Lending Library

The lending library can be a simple display of books that gives patients the opportunity to check out topics of interest that are not commonly found in bookstores, but that challenge many parents in raising a healthy family. An easy check-out policy: Take the cover of the book, photocopy it on bright paper (write the check-out date on it) and attach it to the patient's travel card. Or for those with a paperless practice, place the sheet in a "check-out" folder.

Books can cover an array of topics: pregnancy, raising children, nutrition, stress, chemical exposures, vaccines, autism, women's issues, aging, etc. Here is a healthy sampling of my book list:

• Selling Sickness by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels
• The Maker's Diet by Jordan S. Rubin, NMD, PhD
• The Well-Adjusted Soul by Parker Share Products
• Your Body's Many Cries for Water by F. Batmanghelidj, MD
• Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price, DDS
• The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid, ND
• The Whole Soy Story by Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, CCN
• How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor by Robert Mendelsohn, MD
• Hidden Truth About Cholesterol Lowering Drugs by Shane Ellison, MSc
• Childhood Vaccinations: Questions All Parents Should Ask by Tedd Koren, DC
• Vaccination, Social Violence and Criminality by Harris L. Coulter, PhD
• Vaccines, Autism & Chronic Inflammation: The New Epidemic by Barbara Loe Fisher
• Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy by David Kirby
• A Shot in the Dark by Harris L. Coulter, PhD, and Barbara Loe Fisher
• Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds by Jenny McCarthy
• The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child by Robert Sears, MD
• What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children's Vaccinations by Stephanie Cave, MD
• The Curse of Louis Pasteur by Nancy Appleton, PhD
• Vaccine Safety Manual by Neil Z. Miller
• Saying No to Vaccines by Sherri Tenpenny, DO
• The Parent's Concise Guide to Childhood Vaccinations by Lauren Feder, MD
• Children With Starving Brains; a Medical Treatment Guide for Autism Spectrum Disorder by Jaquelyn McCandless, MD
• Healing the New Childhood Epidemics: Autism, ADHD, Asthma and Allergies. The Groundbreaking Program for the 4-A Disorders by Kenneth Bock and Cameron Stauth
• Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, ADD/ADHD, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Depression, Schizophrenia by Natasha Campbell-McBride, MD
• Yoga for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Step-by-Step Guide for Parents and Caregivers by Dion and Stacey Betts
• Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Sarah J. Buckley, MD
• Mother's Intention: How Belief Shapes Birth by Kim Wildner
• Spontaneous Evolution by Bruce H. Lipton, PhD
• Birthing from Within by Pam England, MA, CNM
• Active Birth by Janet Balaskas
• Having a Baby, Naturally by Peggy O'Mara
• Fathers-to-Be Handbook by Patrick M. Houser
• Natural Pregnancy, Natural Baby by Stacey Rosenberg
• Chicken Soup for the Chiropractic Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Fabrizio Mancini, DC
• Attachment Parenting: Instinctive Care for Your Baby and Young Child by Katie Allison Granju, Betsy Kennedy, William Sears
• Living the Low-Carb Life by Jonny Bowden
• The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding by Gwen Gotsch and Judy Torgus
• Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of The All American Meal by Eric Schlosser
• Generations XL: Raising Healthy, Intelligent Kids in a High-Tech, Junk-Food World by Drs. Joseph Mercola and Ben Lerner
• The Sugar Fix: The High-Fructose Fallout That is Making You Fat and Sick by Dr. Robert J. Johnson
• Well Adjusted Babies by Dr. Jennifer Barham-Floreani
• The Antidepressant Fact Book and by Peter Breggin, MD
• Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry by Peter Breggin, MD
• Talking Back to Prozac by Peter Breggin, MD
• Talking Back to Ritalin by Peter Breggin, MD
• Toxic Psychiatry by Peter Breggin, MD
• Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime by Peter Breggin, MD
• The Heart of Being Helpful by Peter Breggin, MD
• The Conscience of Psychiatric by Peter Breggin, MD
• Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Christiane Northrup, MD
• The Baby Bond by Linda Folden Palmer, DC
• Raising Intuitive Children by Caron B. Goode, EdD, and Tara Peterson
• The New Global Student by Maya Frost
• Attached at the Heart by Lysa Parker, MS, CFLE, and Barbara Nicholson
• Flu: Alternative Treatments and Prevention by Randall Neustaedter, OMD
• Prenatal Massage by Elaine Stillerman, LMT
• Natural Baby and Childcare by Lauren Feder, MD
• Gentle Healing for Baby and Child by Andrea Candee
• Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves by Naomi Aldort, PhD
• Count Your Blessings By John Demartini, DC
• The Miracle of Words by Patti Leviton, CHT, CGIT, MA