Getting involved in your community not only promotes your practice, but also dispels ignorance and myths about chiropractic

A doctor is not only a healer, but also a teacher. As chiropractors, we have much to offer our community—health and wellness, proactive preventive concepts and care, containment of postural and structural stress, and an alternative to pills, potions, and the knife. But, placing a shingle outside the door is simply not enough. We must be active in teaching and advocating chiropractic to the community.

Just a Little R&D
First, decide your particular message or niche. Many DCs have focused their professional life on areas such as sports, ergonomics, nutrition, personal injury, diagnostics and research, rehabilitation, pediatrics, and family wellness care. There are numerous professional seminars that offer expert status credentials upon graduation. With this certificate, you can offer your knowledge and services to specific focus groups, such as attorneys or corporate safety managers.

The next step is to research and create your community demographic model, which usually has four components: retail, residential, labor, and clerical. Each component offers opportunities to provide yearly safety or screening programs. Once you outline where these facilities are, canvas the area with surveys or letters to determine interest and need. These four questions should be answered completely during your research: who, what, where, and when?

Who? Determine the best approach to reach influential people and potential new patients. Create a database of area facilities, such as libraries, schools, houses of worship, fraternal organizations, ethnic and community clubs, sports facilities, health food stores, fitness centers, retail shopping areas, warehouses, medical centers, unions, residential apartments, and home subdivisions.

Visit the local library to access the Haynes Directory, which is a resource of names, addresses, and phone numbers of residents and commercial facilities within your community. Contact your Chamber of Commerce for their listing of corporate, commercial, and fraternal organizations. Review local newspapers and maintain a list of community events, especially with church or civic organizations. When you have compiled this database, determine which groups would benefit most with your specific area of expertise.

What? Your plan of action should be determined by the niche you wish to promote. For example, if you have focused on rehabilitation, target sports centers, health spas, athletic coaches, church leagues, youth leagues, dance centers, and bowling lanes, to name just a few. These facilities have an active membership with a need for chiropractic adjustments and rehabilitative services.

If you have expertise in ergonomics, introduce your skills and proactive preventive ideas to corporations and businesses in your community. Although every facility should have an active safety and ergonomic program in place, most do not. This is a great opportunity to introduce your conservative programs and provide action steps that they can implement immediately. This is a win-win situation for you, employers, and their employees.

For the post-trauma care niche, specifically soft tissue personal injury, then offer your conservative approach to legal professionals, emergency room personnel, and primary care physicians. Although each have their biases, they are professionals and have a need to refer when necessary. All they may need is an introduction to chiropractic to open their eyes and minds. You would all have your spine checked immediately after a trauma, so why keep this sound concept from others? The first professionals seen by many trauma victims are the first you need to reach. Our services are conservative, conscientious, and caring for the intrinsic insult to the neurological components of soft tissue injuries.

Those practicing the global sense of chiropractic and who see spinal wellness as a base of health should reach out to senior citizens, youth groups willing to listen to wholistic options, mothers searching for alternative health care for their families, or people searching for answers to health concerns requiring less medication and crisis management.

Developing community involvement starts with a determination to both teach and reach by offering your services and being available to participate in active health- and wellness-related programs.

Where: As mentioned earlier, there are various venues for you to meet and greet. Many refrain from reaching out to larger venues, such as corporations, but this is shortsighted. Larger employers are more prone to employee injury, employee downtime, and lost production. Therefore, they are more aware of the need for employee safety and wellness. If you have packaged programs regarding safety, ergonomics, and stress management, and are available to provide employees conservative work injury care, large companies are more receptive.

Contact the human resources or personnel department and ask whether they offer employee ergonomic and safety programs. Discuss your programs or set up a meeting with their safety or ergonomic committee to discuss the best program. For example: “Hi, this is Dr. Smith from the Family Chiropractic Center. Is there someone responsible for safety or ergonomic programs within your company? We provide a number of employee enrichment programs concerning ergonomics and safety, and I would appreciate the opportunity to send you material or meet with you to discuss how best to assist your employees with our proactive programs. We only have a few dates set aside during the next 3 months to offer these programs, and I thought you may be interested.”

When I contacted the Parks and Recreation department of my county, the person to whom I spoke with on the phone insisted we meet prior to committing to a date. During our meeting, I reviewed my stress management and ergonomic programs, which she thought were beneficial to her department. Then I asked whether she knew of other departments within her building that would be interested in the programs. After she called around, I was able to set up numerous meetings within an hour or two.

By using sound demographic models, you have a wide range from which to choose. Residential communities have apartment and home subdivisions, libraries, houses of worship, schools, municipal facilities, recreation centers, and police and fire services. Retail offers the typical mom-and-pop shops, strip shopping centers, malls, and national chain stores such as Albertsons and Walmart. Clerical employees, although avoiding lifting and handling heavy objects, are prone to physical wear and tear via excessive overuse of paraspinal soft tissue. Sitting aggravates both the upper and lower spinal plexuses and produces musculoskeletal injuries due to neurological and muscular insults. Labor includes warehouses, retail labor pools, and various material handlers. Although, we may focus on the spine, the adjoining extremities and paraspinal musculature and support systems play a huge role in adjustment realignment and maintenance.

Involving our community within our sphere of health and wellness requires proactive educational and screening programs. In towns and cities with a limited number of chiropractors, the role of educator and healer is your responsibility. In larger communities, the responsibility is usually covered by the aggressive few who see the vision and obligation.

When? Ask your patients to keep you informed about community events and watch the local news for upcoming charity events and community projects. An active public relations effort at these events will create a means to introduce your office and chiropractic. Postural and stress screenings, health fair participation, topical workshops, and charitable pro bono care will provide longevity and practice sustenance for years to come. Be creative and open your doors via community appreciation days—an open invitation for all to explore chiropractic. By networking at local events, you can promote your outreach programs.

Explore every opportunity as if it were the first. Your community needs you as much as you need them. CP

Joel E. Margolies, DC, has been in practice for 24 years in Atlanta and is the author of four chiropractic books: Smart Start, Chiropractic Marketing and Public Relations, Chiropractic Workshop Workbook, and Personal Injury Workbook. He sends a free weekly chiropractic email newsletter concerning practice management, public relations, and philosophy to more than 8,700 chiropractors in 31 countries. Margolies can be reached via email: joel3639@aol.com   or website: www.chirosmart.net.