book reviews DISCOVER WELLNESS – HOW STAYING HEALTHY CAN MAkE YOUR LIFE RICH (CANADIAN EDITION) By Dr. Bob Hoffman and Dr. Jason A. Deitch with Dr. Shaelyn Osborn and Dr. Heather Jones Based on the American best-seller by the same name, the Canadian version of Discover Well-ness – How staying healthy can make your life rich reunites authors Bob Hoffman and Jason A. Deitch as they contribute to Drs. Shaelyn Osborn and Heather Jones’ refreshing over-view of Canada’s health-care crisis. The authors don’t stop at identifying problems, but offer evidence to support their central concept that many elements contributing to these problems are, in fact, reversible and/or preventable. Fur-thermore, state Osborn and Jones, individual Canadians can make real and significant contri-butions to improving their health and the current state of the health-care system. Drs. Osborn and Jones embarked on this project fuelled with enthusiasm for Hoffman and Deitch’s model, wanting to convert its details to reflect Canadian realities. In the book, Jones and Osborn outline some of the key issues facing health care in Canada, right now, in order to explain where changes can be made. They point out that our health-care system is, contrary to the popular misconception, not free. Furthermore, the excessive funds that are being extracted – in the form of taxes, etc. – from each of us are actually being used to finance expensive, but essentially ineffective, solu-tions to preventable problems. Finally, the authors suggest that all individuals have the responsibility to their community and their country to actively exercise prevention and optimal wellness, a strategy that not only contributes to overall qual-ity of life, but can lead to reduced health-care costs. Jones and Osborn present seven current epidemic lifestyle dis-eases and describe how these are preventable. In each chapter outlining a disease, the authors also explain what the expendi-ture is, to individual Canadians annually, as a result of current treatments utilized for that disease. They go on to show how bringing these costs down, primarily through prevention strate-gies, could, in fact, have a positive effect on each per-son’s wealth, as well as health. Well aware that their approach represents an appreciable shift in people’s perspectives, Jones and Osborn lay out manageable steps forward into wellness in a way that is sustain-able, but produces encouraging results. As the authors of both the U.S. and Canadian edi-tions of the book are doctors of chiropractic, a descrip-tion of chiropractic treatment, and how it can have a positive bearing on lifestyle-related diseases facing our respective countries today, is a feature of both edi-tions. This section discusses the importance of align-ment and is laid out in an easy-to-understand manner – appealing to the lay reader as well as to clinicians who wish to harness it in order to educate their patients – and reflects all styles of chiropractic practice. Special sections by prominent wellness experts, including such renowned chiropractors as Dennis Perman and Gerard Clum, enhance the body of work in the book. As well, a section detail-ing the various types of health-care practitioners with whom an individual may want to align to enhance his/her wellness strate-gies is provided. The purpose of this is to help readers educate themselves in the choices they have to build a health-care team that is optimal for their needs. Discover Wellness – How staying healthy can make your life rich outlines a practical approach to reducing health-care costs by preventing lifestyle diseases. By bringing the message of wellness home in such a close and personal manner, and by using Canadian statistics and information, Drs. Jones and Os-born leave the reader with the clear understanding that solving our health-care problems is not in the hands of an elected and distant few – nor the domain of one or another discipline – but is indisputably a job that we can all work on together. To preview and/or order the Canadian edition of Discover Wellness – How staying healthy can make your life rich, please visit www.discoverwellnesscanada.com. • PEARLS OF WISDOM – PURE AND POWERFUL, by Dr. Liz Anderson-Peacock My assignment, as I saw it, was simple and straight-forward – I was to read Pearls of Wisdom – Pure and Powerfu l by Dr. Liz Anderson-Peacock and formulate questions for her to address in what was to be a fairly standard interview. Not long into my actual meeting with her, however, I felt things were taking a turn that I could only consider disastrous. My role, in this type of interview, is to invite, and then allow, the author to speak – to express the book’s purpose and to ig-nite its message – so that I can then, in turn, carry the flame to potential readers. But, instead, I found myself do-ing an inordinate amount of the talking with Dr. Liz asking the questions. Not only was this inappropriate, but my brain balked while my vocal apparatus continued to defy my mandate. How was I to define the essence of the book if I didn’t give its author the right-of-way to speak! I left the interview feeling sheepish for having caused Dr. Liz to endure my ramblings. To boot, in the follow-up emails that transpired between us, she suggest-ed I include some of those thoughts, that I had expressed to her during the interview, in my review of the book. And that’s when it hit me. Dr. Liz’s desire to inspire her readers to reflect on their own experiences, convictions, and purpose, and then 38 • CANADiAN CHiROPRACTOR | FEBRUARY 2011 draw – from what they discover in those reflections – the strength and direction to go out and realize their goals, is the essence of the book and of its author. Structurally, the book is a collection of chapters by prominent and spirit-popping women doctors of chiropractic. Each contribution is minimally edited, to maximize its authenticity. Bullets highlighting sa-lient points are identified at the end of each chapter – their purpose is to offer the reader direction in per-sonal development based on that writer’s account of her own experiences. Dr. Liz notes that some chapters are ana-lytical, some emotional, some integrative – together, they paint a panoramic picture of the profession, and offer insights for its practitioners while profiling its celebrated women members. Dr. Anderson-Peacock, who brought the contributors to-gether, and lends the book its educational dimension, also ex-plores her own experiences in a chapter titled after her mantra, “response-ability,” a term she uses to inspire all of us to lend our voice. Herself a DC, she chose to gather women authors in order to capture – and inspire through – their inherently ho-listic and collaborative essence as well as to highlight a profes-sional demographic whose practice and lifestyle necessarily www.canadianchiropractor.ca
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