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.
Kathy Taromina, DACM, MS, LAc
Dr. Kathy Taromina, co-president of the Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine, brings over 30 years of experience in acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine and Asian bodywork therapy. She is also faculty and clinical supervisor at SIEAM.