June, 2009

Self Esteem

The issue of self-esteem comes up over and over in the movie Finding Normal. Watch the trailer and take note of how many times the issue at hand is self esteem, either directly or indirectly.

http://www.findingnormal.org/?page_id=7

I count at least 16 times. Here are some examples of what I mean:

CAN recently asked for the clinics listed on the Locate-A-Clinic page (full-time community-style clinics) to report the number of treatments they'd given over the period from March 1st to May 31st, 2009 - a three month time frame.

After a week of feedback and ~ 45 responses, we've got......36,000 treatments.

I asked a patient if she had anything she wanted to share on the CAN blog -- here's what she wrote.

Why do doctors wear white lab coats?  Because they say "science".

Sometimes "the creative process" is really "the creative mess." The process of writing books, for instance. After I wrote The Remedy, it was clear that more books were needed, and so Skip and I worked for over a year on writing a book for community acupuncturists.

I have been learning about/discussing the concept of what are the fundamental skills of a busy and successful community acupuncturist with Lisa and Skip and others recently insome WCA meetings. Lisa is compiling information on what it takes to do this CA work really well so that we can train new CA folks more efficiently and effectively.

     Not intended to be a comprehensive list, but helpful to me to look back on.  I imagine everyone has their own list. Also, this seems to be what happened from my perspective; it could be these patients left for entirely different reasons that I will never know.

I think last evening I had the first indefinable experience since beginning community acupuncture. I’m afraid to analyze it too much, for it feels so illusive. But I want to share it here, because, well - where else would I...? A strange kind of magic was going on…. and I found myself walking around with a stupid inner smile.

D. is ten. His mother had called a week ago, explaining that he has retinitis pigmentosis, something I had never heard of before, but upon briefly researching, learned to be a genetic disease that may lead to blindness.

Recently we received this feedback from a pokee.

If most of your patients are elderly, there could be serious considerations, economically.

Last week Acupuncture Together celebrated its one year anniversary.  In honor of this occasion I hosted a free treatment day on Thursday, May 28th and requested donations for The Pan African Acupuncture Project and Acupuncturists Without Borders.  It turned into a really wonderful day.  I treated 42 people and raised $600 in donations!  Many of my regular patients came in to enjoy the day