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.
Alan Chang, LAc
Alan Chang is a California licensed acupuncturist practicing in Oxnard and Ojai. He graduated from Santa Barbara College of Oriental Medicine in 2004, and completed the Classical Five-Element Acupuncture Program with the Institute of Classical Five-Element Acupuncture in Santa Monica in 2009. He is a practitioner and teacher of Yang Style T'ai Chi, and also practices Kyudo Zen Archery.