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.
William Morris, DAOM, PhD, LAc
Dr. William Morris is a scholar-practitioner with over 45 years of clinical experience. He is the author of Neoclassical Pulse Diagnosis, TCM Case Studies: Dermatology, Li Shi-Zhen Pulse Studies: An Illustrated Guide, Transformation: Treating Trauma with Acupuncture and Herbs, Cycles in Medical Astrology, and The Book of Dreams. Over the course of his career, he has developed three doctoral programs and three institutional review boards. He lives in British Columbia, Canada, where he teaches, writes, provides consultations, and serves on the board of directors for AIMC Berkeley.