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.
Lili Tom, FNP-C, MSN, RN, LAc, MSOM, DAIM
Lili Tom is a dual-licensed family nurse practitioner (Kaiser Permanente, Berkeley, Calif.) and acupuncturist, grounded in both allopathic and traditional Chinese medicine. Special populations include LGBTQ, survivors of trauma, and marginalized communities. Areas of interest range from medicine in austere conditions to somatic therapy, intersectionality and self-care. She received her Master or Science in Oriental Medicine (2005) and Doctorate of Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine (2023) from Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College.