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.
Raina Tsuda, DAOM, LAc, CMT
Raina Tsuda has been a Clinical Specialist at UCLA Center for East-West Medicine in Westlake Village for six years. She earned her doctorate in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and master's in Traditional Oriental Medicine from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego.