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.
Robert Hoffman, MSTOM
Robert Hoffman has been in practice for 26 years and holds a Master in Science in Traditional Oriental Medicine. He has taught more than 500 classroom didactica hours and traveled extensively, studying healing focused on implementing the eight limbs of Asian medicine to Western audiences. See plaintalkpractice.com for details.