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.
Jiazhen Li, DAOM, LAc, MD (China)
Dr. Jiazhen Li graduated from Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2014, received her master's degree from the American College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM) in 2016, and her DAOM degree from Bastyr University in 2019. She completed a one-year internship in a Chinese TCM hospital, a two-year internship in the ACAOM main clinic, and a two-year internship in Harborview Hospital (Seattle,Wash.) during the DAOM program. Her broad experiences have helped her understand the development of acupuncture in China and the rest of the world.