Carol Ann Malizia, DC, CCSP, finds her practice niche with a wellness education approach
The Chiropractic Health Center, Walden, NY, team members: (front row) Carol Ann Malizia, DC; Fred Malizia, business office accountant; (back row L–R) Robin Johnson, front desk CA; Andrea Peacock, DC; Lu Greene, office coordinator; KellyAnn Muller, front desk coordinator; Amy Cutter, massage therapist; Pat Alfarone, DC; and (not pictured) Diane Sellazzo, front desk CA.
This past autumn, while many Americans stood in long, dispirited lines for flu shots amid an unprecedented shortage of vaccine, patients under the care of Carol Ann Malizia, DC, CCSP, stayed home and went about their business as usual. They eschewed the injections, yet avoided catching the bug. They managed that feat simply by receiving adjustments, getting plenty of exercise, and, above all, eating right.
“I prefer flu prevention by boosting immunity the natural way, which is the better way,” says Malizia, who owns wellness-focused Chiropractic Health Center in Walden, NY, and is passionate about nutrition education.
“Chiropractic is the cornerstone of wellness; however, my position is that you can adjust a patient for years, but if he’s continuing to eat fast food, then it’s all for nothing because he’s adversely affecting his body chemistry and throwing off the balance of his nerve system,” she explains. “In my practice, we take an approach that’s much more about the biochemistry of the body as it relates to the nerve system—particularly with regard to nutrition and exercise. The most crucial things I want my patients to accomplish is enhancement of their immune system through powerful nutrition, powerful chiropractic, powerful thought patterns, and powerful behavior habits. They do that, and they’ve set the stage to live better and longer.”
Once a-Pun a Time
Malizia contends that many people find practitioner-led discussions of nutrition boring, and as such what they are told about good eating goes in one ear and out the other. To counteract that tendency, Malizia has adopted mechanisms for making nutrition education much more palatable.
A favorite teaching tool of hers is an audio magazine to which she and her husband, lifestyle coach Doug Caporrino, often contribute reports. The product is called Results Through Research, which, with more than 5,000 subscribers in the United States, is said to be the second most-listened-to audio magazine of its kind. Patients are handed a copy as they leave the office; it comes on CD, so they can listen to it in their car on the ride home. (For more information about RTR, visit www.resultsthruresearch.com or call (866) 438-8348).
Malizia also likes to reinforce nutritional education with the help of fun activities. For example, 1 day each year, she sets out for patients dozens and dozens of oranges, each adorned with a fortune cookie-like tag bearing a message about the health benefits to be gained from regular consumption of the citrus fruit. On that particular occasion, her staff shows up for work clad in orange-colored clothing and attempts to induce groans among the patients by bandying puns along the lines of “orange you glad you had your adjustment today?”
The puns are memorable only because they’re so egregious, but that is the whole idea—to impart a message about wellness that will be hard to shake. Notably, the oranges event usually is timed to coincide with the start of flu season.
“That’s when everyone is hearing in the news about the need to run out and get flu shots,” says Malizia. “It’s on everyone’s mind, so it’s the perfect time to teach about the alternative to flu shots. And, once they’ve been educated, my patients often go out and educate their friends, so there’s an internal marketing benefit to this as well.”
Worse than flu season in Malizia’s calculus is the stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. It’s during that season when good nutrition habits are most likely to be chucked as tempting foods of all the wrong kind are trotted out in abundance. It’s also when stress levels skyrocket, thanks to the shopping frenzies and lavish entertaining associated with the holidays.
“The immune system always bottoms out at that time of year, and that’s why people tend to get sick with flu-like symptoms,” says Malizia.
Chiropractic Health Center occupies a 100-year-old, two-story house, an important room of which is its upstairs kitchen. There, nutritious dishes are prepared from time to time by a devoted staffer. The foods taste every bit as heavenly as their wafting aroma suggests to patients elsewhere in the building.
“When the food’s fresh and hot, the patients are welcome to indulge. I believe in that. I believe in sharing with them good, healthful recipes, and this is a great way to spark their interest,” says Malizia.
Malizia describes to her young patient the benefits of a wellness-based care plan, which slows the progression of sports injury-related arthritic changes in the spine.
Home Improvement
Chiropractic Health Center is a practice with up to 35% of its revenues derived from cash, while the remaining 65% comes from a near-equal split among private insurance, Medicare, workers’ compensation, and no-fault. Malizia opened its doors for business in 1992, 3 years after graduating from New York College of Chiropractic.
“I was working at the time in the office of another chiropractor about 50 miles from Walden and had become convinced that I should devote myself to educating people about a wellness lifestyle, as opposed to helping them manage pain,” she says.
Just prior to the launch, Malizia joined a chiropractic professional-development organization based in Jericho, NY. From them she gleaned ideas about how to establish and manage her practice’s goals. She says she also owes much to a practice-building guru based in Roanoke, Va, for helping her gain the knowledge and skills necessary to begin offering posture retraining, a critical ingredient in wellness. Kent Greenawalt has also inspired her with his passion and commitment to the profession.
Jumping Off Pointe Straight-talking Carol Ann Malizia, DC, CCSP, isn’t one to dance around a subject. Unless, of course, the subject happens to be dance, in which case you can expect to witness some pretty fancy footwork. And that’s not figuratively speaking. Throughout her childhood in West Point, NY, Malizia’s all-consuming passion was dance. Tap, jazz, ballet, ballroom, you name the style; if it involved the moving of one’s feet to music, she was into it. “I danced 6, 7 days a week,” she says. “I spent summers taking classes at the American Ballet Theater.” Malizia didn’t win any awards for her youthful performances, but that did not matter. She had achieved what in her mind was the greatest honor of all—being chosen to play the role of Clara in the ever-popular The Nutcracker. Malizia was 14 at the time. “Clara is traditionally played by a younger child,” she says. “Fortunately, I was short enough to pass for younger.” Her tininess worked for her that time, but worked against her later on when she aspired to become a professional dancer. As Malizia discovered, the top New York choreographers, the dance-routine makers who set the pace for the rest of the field, preferred their hoofers tall, reedy, and blonde. Alas, Malizia was none of those. “My father,” she recounts, “sat me down and told me I had a choice to make. He said that, if I wanted, I could use my legs to pursue musical theater, an arena that would be open to me because of my dance background. Or, he said, I could instead use my brain for a living. If I chose to use my legs, at best I’d have a so-so career. But if I chose to get someplace with my brain, I could go much, much further.” That led Malizia, by then a student at the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Riverdale, NY, class of 1986, to apply to medical school. Malizia soon had second thoughts, though. “I lost my enthusiasm for training in the allopathic arts after realizing that the only two options I’d have for helping people as a medical doctor were drugs and surgery,” she says. So Malizia instead opted to enroll at New York Chiropractic College, completing the program there in 1989. She credits her father with convincing her to go that route. “My dad visited a chiropractor regularly for wellness care and saw to it that I received adjustments myself, beginning around the time I was 10,” she says. “My exposure to chiropractic all those years, all the good results I gained from it, it all came back to mind as I weighed my career possibilities.” Even though her dream of fame and fortune in dance proved hopelessly elusive, Malizia has nonetheless been able to draw on her experience with that art form to be a very effective care provider to those who did manage to land the proverbial big show-biz break and become professional dancers, as well as to those who are merely amateur devotees of the art. “I especially like working with older married couples who like to dance a lot, because dance is good for their nerve system, which in turn helps keep them young,” she says. Something else Malizia’s father handed her: the secret of career satisfaction. “He promised that if I were to do what I love and love what I do, I’d never spend a single day of my life working,” she says. “By that, he meant work would never seem like actual work. He was sure right about that.” —RS |
The house in which the practice resides is a downtown Walden landmark and offers plenty of visual charm (both a big boost to Malizia’s marketing efforts). However, when Malizia happened upon the domicile 10 years ago, it was completely lacking in what real estate agents refer to as curb appeal.
“I liked that it was old and decrepit and badly in need of an adjustment,” the perpetually ebullient and playful Malizia gibes. “It had potential, and that’s what I really saw when I looked it over.”
The owners were understandably having trouble renting the place. Malizia used that fact as leverage to persuade them to spruce things up in exchange for her pledge to be a long-term tenant.
At 2,400 sq ft, the house is big enough to accommodate Malizia and her colleagues, Pat Alfarone, DC, and Andrea Peacock, DC, plus naturopath Irene Catania, ND, LAc, who provides acupuncture services. There is also a massage therapist by the name of Amy Cutter and a dynamic support staff consisting of Lu Greene, Kelly Muller, Robyn Johnson, Diane Sellazzo, and Malizia’s father Ben.
Malizia takes pride in her office’s x-ray machine and pair of computerized spinal imaging machines—the latter employed to help patients better recognize improvements to their nervous system from visit to visit. Chiropractic Health Center has four adjusting rooms, one equipped with a table for young children.
“The kids’ table is shaped to resemble a white tiger, and they absolutely love it,” she says. “A lot of times, they’re intimidated by adult tables, so being able to provide the alternative of the tiger table makes a huge difference.”
As for marketing, Malizia contends an abundance of new patients come forth any time a practice offers a message about health that resonates. And the message that resonates best is one that promises improved wellness and lifestyle enjoyment, she insists. She attempts to disseminate that message to as many people as possible, even in courtrooms where she often testifies as an expert witness.
“I feel disappointed if I don’t gain at least two new patients from the jury after I’ve educated them about the benefits of chiropractic,” she says, only half jesting.
Woman’s Work
Beyond her role with Chiropractic Health Center, Malizia is a frequent lecturer at Parker College of Chiropractic. Typically, she covers topics near and dear to her heart: this year, she is planning to talk at some length about the advantageous talents and traits women can be expected to bring to practice as newly minted chiropractors.
“Female doctors tend to be exceptionally good listeners,” she says. “And, as women, they enjoy an immediate rapport with mothers. However, I’m not a women-power promoter. My bottom line is that women and men, despite the differences, are really all the same where their fundamental purpose for coming into this life is concerned. That purpose is to exert a positive influence over the lives of others.”
Still, Malizia says she is heartened by the increasing number of women choosing to become chiropractors.
“When I was in chiropractic college, only 10% of my class were women,” she says. “Today, same school, the incoming class this year is 40% female.”
Asked to identify the woman she feels has made the biggest contribution to the field of chiropractic, Malizia responds with the name of Alma Arnold.
“Dr Arnold was one of the first female chiropractors; she ran an institution known as the New York Healthorarium and had a second very large practice in Washington, DC,” Malizia says. “Very, very successful chiropractor in an era when it wasn’t unusual for female chiropractors to do time in jail. Yet today, Arnold is often overlooked, her place in chiropractic history largely forgotten due to the prominence accorded two of her contemporaries, B.J. and D.D. Palmer.
“In addition to Alma Arnold there also were the highly regarded women of the Cleveland family of chiropractors, but they weren’t alone in their ability to impact chiropractic. Then and in the years long since there have been many women who have also had a tremendous influence.
“I consider it a real privilege to be a recipient of the torch passed along by those women.” CP
Rich Smith is a contributing writer for Chiropractic Products.
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