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.
Alejandro Katz, MD, OMD, LAc, QME
Dr. Alejandro Katz was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1953. He received his MD degree from the University of Buenos Aires in 1976 and operated a private acupuncture/medical practice in Argentina for six years before relocating to the United States.
In 1983, Dr. Katz received his OMD degree from Samra University of Oriental Medicine. He later became a clinical instructor at Samra and helped establish a Latino acupuncture clinic at the university.
Dr. Katz currently maintains two busy acupuncture clinics in Los Angeles and Van Nuys, California. He is a member of the National Acupuncture Network and the Sociedad Argentina de Acupuncture, and he has hosted various Spanish-language radio and television programs designed to educate the Hispanic community about improving health through alternative medicine.