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.
L. Francesca Ferrari, LAc, DMQ, DTCM
L. Francesca Ferrari is an associate dean of Medical Qigong Science at Five Branches University in Santa Cruz, Calif., and maintains a private practice in Monterey Bay. For more information, please visit www.francescaferrari.com.