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.
Christine Chang, DAOM, LAc, Dipl. OM
Dr. Christine Chang has been a TCM practitioner and educator for over 20 years. She has served on the Board of Directors & Herbal Committee of the American Association of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine (AAAOM). A world-traveling scholar, she has represented the U.S. as a delegate at plenary meetings of the ISO/TC249, hosted in Beijing, The Netherlands, Italy, and China.