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.
Iman Majd, MD, MS, EAMP / LAc
Dr. Iman Majd is the director of the Osher Clinic for Integrative Medicine at the  University of Washington and a member of the NCCAOM board of commissioners. Learn more at https://integrativehealth.org/iman_majd.