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.
Katharina Rhein, cand. med. Lic. Acupuncture
Katharina Rhein is co-lead of the Society for Acupuncture Research Women’s Health Special Interest Group; and a doctoral researcher at the Institute for General Practice and Interprofessional Care, University Hospital and Faculty of Medicine, Tübingen, Germany.