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.
McCormick Templeton, PhD, DACM, MSOM
Dr. McCormick Templeman is an author and college professor with a background in traditional Chinese medicine. She holds an MSOM from AIMC Berkeley and a DACM from Pacific College of Health and Science. Her books have been published by multiple Penguin Random House imprints, and her short writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and CJOM (now JAIM). A graduate of Reed College, she has a PhD in English and literary studies from the University of Denver, and teaches at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Va.