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.
Isabella Gucci-Ruffalo, MSAOM, LAc
Isabella Gucci-Ruffalo is an acupuncturist, holistic nutritionist and clinical qi gong practitioner. In addition to obtaining a master's degree in Chinese medicine, she is one of the few physicians in the world trained through a traditional apprenticeship under a Taoist qi gong master. She teaches qi gong  and natural healing retreats, and is an author for various publications.