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.
Amanda Azadian, BS
Amanda Azadian is a writer and yoga teacher living in Brooklyn, N.Y., and studying acupuncture at Pacific College of Health and Science. She earned a BS in applied health science with a minor in international relations at Wheaton College of Illinois and runs a consulting company focused on integrating the best of both Eastern and Western medicine. She mentors health care startups and has managed digital health strategy products at the American Medical Association; health care service delivery programs at Walgreens Boots Alliance,;health care solution accelerator cohorts at MATTER Health; and managed care contracts at a Federally Qualified Health Center in southside Chicago.