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.
Tanya L. Carleton, LAc
Tanya Carleton is an assistant clinical supervisor and the academic dean at the Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She also practices at the Wisdom of the Ancients Clinic in Denver.