This month’s Editorial Review Group Chair Profile is a little different, as we give a special send off to one of our longest collaborators, Dr. Dana Lawrence. As the ERG Chair in Chiropractic since the inception of Doody’s Review Service, Dr. Lawrence has led an accomplished and accoladed career, and we’d like to use this profile to celebrate his time within and beyond Doody’s Review Service. 

Dr. Lawrence has a plethora of achievements under his belt. He is a founding member of the Chiropractic Research Journal Editor’s Council. He is a past editor for several professional scientific journals in chiropractic, including the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, Journal of Chiropractic Medicine, Journal of Chiropractic Humanities, and Journal of Sports Chiropractic and Rehabilitation. He has served on over 20 editorial boards and is also associate editor for several. 

Dr. Lawrence has published several textbooks, including Fundamentals of Chiropractic Diagnosis and Management and Chiropractic Technique. He was also editor for two book series from Mosby, Yearbook of Chiropractic and Advances in Chiropractic.  

Dr. Lawrence has been a merit reviewer for the Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research, and for the Health Resources Service Agency (HRSA) in both their Chiropractic Demonstration Grants program, the Interdisciplinary Training for Rural Health Care program, and other programs related to delivery of healthcare in rural settings. He was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Office of Alternative Medicine, and later became a member of the Alternative Medicine Program Advisory Council of the OAM and the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 

In 1998, Dr. Lawrence was named “Researcher of the Year” by the Foundation for Chiropractic Research and Education. He has also been awarded a Presidential leadership Award from the American Chiropractic Association and in 2013 was named Academician of the Year by the ACA. 

Most recently, Dr. Lawrence is editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chiropractic and served as Human Protections Administrator at Parker University. His preceding roles at Parker University include Senior Director of Faculty Development and Special Projects, as well as Associate Provost of Education and Research. Previously, his tenure in academia includes Senior Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Palmer College of Chiropractic, and Dean at the National University of Health Sciences. 

On top of his star-studded career, Dr. Lawrence was among the initial core of Editorial Review Group Chairs published in the earliest iteration of our bimonthly print publication, Doody’s Health Sciences Book Review Journal. As the service grew, so too did our reach. Those original ERG Chairs covered 135 specialties across the health sciences and were affiliated with Chicago-area academic medical centers – Northwestern, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago, Rush, and Loyola. With Dr. Lawrence on board, we were able to add the National College of Chiropractic (now called the National University of Health Sciences) to this distinguished list of academic institutions from which our expert reviewers would come. 

As for his contributions to Doody’s Review Service, Dr. Lawrence reviewed 123 books. On Dr. Lawrence’s contributions to our mission, Doody Enterprises’ founder and former president and CEO, Dan Doody, shares that “Dr. Lawrence achieves the distinction of not only being our second longest serving ERG Chair, but he established unofficial records for how quickly he would submit reviews assigned to his Editorial Review Group. Words can’t adequately express the depth of our gratitude for his 31+ years of service to our valued readers.” 

Thank you, Dr. Lawrence, for an incredible and impactful tenure with Doody’s. We wish you all the best in your retirement!