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.
Lloyd Wright, DNBAO, LAc, AP, BA
Lloyd Wright is the current vice president and former president of the Asian Medicine Acupuncturists of Arizona and has served on the California Acupuncture Board, the board of directors of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, Arizona Society of Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture, and the California Acupuncture Association. He holds a diplomate from the National Board of Acupuncture Orthopedics and served as a qualified medical evaluator for the California workers comp system, as academic dean for two acupuncture colleges, and participated in numerous site visits for school accreditation for the Accreditation Commission of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. He is currently in private practice in Scottsdale, Ariz., and in the process of completing his Doctorate of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine at Pacific College of Health Sciences.