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.
Nathan Anderson, LAc, President, CSOMA
Nathan Anderson, LAc, is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University (BA) and a summa cum laude graduate of Emperor's College of Traditional Oriental Medicine (MTOM). Anderson is the current President of the California State Oriental Medical Association (CSOMA), the largest state-level professional association representing California acupuncturists. Anderson is a former Clinic Director and faculty member of several universities of acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Los Angeles, CA. Anderson currently maintains a private practice with his wife, and is motivated to further mainstream acupuncture and Oriental medicine and their philosophies into the Western medical community.