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.
Andre Yershov, LAc
Andre Yershov is a licensed acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist practicing in Midtown Manhattan, N.Y., and the founder of Acupuncture NYC, Medicine of Changes. He graduated from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine (now PCHS) in 1997 and has maintained a continuous private practice since then, with a clinical focus on microtrauma, rehabilitation-oriented acupuncture, and functional recovery.