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.
Dongcheng Li, AP, EdD, Dipl. OM
Dr. Dongcheng Li, a Florida-licensed acupuncture physician, is a fifth-generation TCM practitioner who trained and studied in China from an early age, earning a medical degree in TCM and master’s degree in Chinese medicine. He came to the U.S. in 2007 and earned another master’s degree (exercise physiology at the University of Texas at Arlington, follwed by a doctoral degree in education at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Li has published nearly 10 books, and teaches acupuncture board licensing exam preparation classes in the U.S. and China.