Michael O. Smith, MD, DAc, founder and chairperson of the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) and internationally recognized for developing an acupuncture treatment protocol for chemical dependency, passed away on Dec. 24, 2017. He is survived by his daughters, Joanna Smith and Jessica Hutter.
Dr. Smith was a psychiatrist, acupuncturist, addiction specialist and public health planner who served as associate professor of psychiatry at Cornell Medical School and directed the Lincoln Hospital Recovery Center in The Bronx, N.Y., for more than three decades.
A graduate of Wesleyan University and the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, Dr. Smith accomplished a great deal for the acupuncture profession while advancing the treatment of chemical dependency.
Here are a few of his other successes, documented in a self-authored curriculum vitae provided by NADA upon his passing:
"Teaching correction officers to do acupuncture in Dartmoor Prison [England]. Now it is used in over a hundred English prisons."
"Being mentioned in an article on the front page of the Chinese-language daily in Beijing after speaking to a medical school about using acupuncture for AIDS."
"Coordinating the PTSD stress-relief treatment of hundreds of Katrina first responders and then helping to establish funded acupuncture training for dozens of New Orleans' locals."
A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
Acupuncture can be highly effective in cases of nasal congestion so common in allergy presentations; so much so that I often treat such issues using acupuncture protocols alone. In cases of seasonal allergies with highly predictable causes such as obvious elevations of environmental allergens, I use a skeleton acupuncture prescription that can easily be fleshed out to target potential underlying patterns and effectively customized to the patient.
The field of acupuncture in the U.S. continues to grow in visibility, patient demand and clinical effectiveness. Yet behind the curtain, many acupuncturists are quietly struggling to keep their doors open. While the profession is rooted in centuries of healing tradition, modern economic pressures – particularly those driven by insurance limitations, low reimbursement rates and job-market saturation – are making it increasingly difficult for licensed acupuncturists to thrive.
