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.
Sarah Poulin, DACM, LAc, Dipl. OM
Sarah Poulin is a licensed acupuncturist and Chinese herbalist with a private practice in Middlebury, Connecticut. She is an alumna of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, where she received both her Master's of Science in Traditional Oriental Medicine (in 2012) and her Doctorate of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine (in 2016). For more information please visit her website at sarahpoulinlac.com.