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.
Terrie Duda Harris, DOM
Terri Duda Harris is an acupuncturist from Santa Fe, NM. She is a 2002 graduate of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine--New York and a volunteer with AWB, Coordinating AWB's Military Stress Recovery Project.