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.
John Orsborn, LAc, Dipl. Ac.
John Orsborn owns Tao of Wellbeing Acupuncture Clinic, LLC, in Bradenton, Fla., and is an adjunct professor at East West College of Natural Medicine in Sarasota, Fla. His undergraduate studies were in Chinese philosophy, and he utilizes his knowledge of Daoist philosophy to enhance and further understand the classical texts of Chinese medicine.