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I’m a member of the Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Society of Massachusetts(AOMSM).  Recently, a “subcommitteeof insurance” was formed by someone who is very in favor of attempting to getacupuncture covered by insurance. Currently, as some of you may know, Massachusetts requires all residentsto have health insurance – those without face tax penalties.  Putting aside the thought that thelikelihood of this is probably quite slim, I think it’s still a valuablediscussion. 

The person who started the subcommittee put the following post up in the forum:

Following the implementation in February 2008 of in-store health clinics in Atlanta, Little Rock and Dallas under “The Clinic at Wal-Mart” brand, Wal-Mart now has its sights set on the holistic health market with the opening of Wal-Mart Community Acupuncture clinics in several major urban centers across America by years end. Wal-Mart Senior Vice President and president, health and wellness Dr. John Agwaunobi said, “Chinese medicine and pharmacology are a great treasure house and efforts should be made to increase both access and affordability, which seem to go hand in hand.”

A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said. 'Lord, I
would like to know what  Heaven and Hell are like.

The Lord led the holy man to two doors.

He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room
was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew,
which smelled delicious and made the holy man's mouth water. The people sitting
around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were
holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms and each
found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. But because
the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into
their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

The Lord said, 'You have seen Hell.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27769977@N08/?deleted=2765036303

Two years ago, when I told my patients of my plans to convert the practice to a CAP, they surprised me that month by scheduling more visits than ever, at the old price.  It only lasted a month, but told me that they were expressing their trust in me, once they realized that I really cared about them getting well.

Cannabustion, the direct burning of cannabis sativa on the skin for therapeutic effect, is being touted as a new and powerfully effective treatment modality capable of treating a variety of health conditions, says the director of acupuncture research and development at Misty Mind Acupuncture College, Paul "Don't" Wakeham. The technique is believed to be as powerful as traditional moxabustion, which uses mugwart in various degrees of purity. "Cannibustion is similar to moxabustion in that regard." said Wakeham from his office at the college in Eugene, Oregon. "You can use some really killer shit or some reg's. It depends what you are trying to do...and how much cash the customer has. Not to mention that sometimes all you have is schwag and that will have to do because it's better than nothing, I guess."

Changing habits is one of the most difficult things we try to do. We seem to have a default setting that takes us back into the groove, regardless of the habit or how much we want to change.  Smoking, eating things that we know aren’t promoting our weight or health goals, negative thinking, being too crabby to those we care about, etc. We all have habits we’d just as soon change.  And we’ve all failed at changing them.

One of the aspects of oriental medicine that I like is its empirical nature; performing a treatment and observing the results. It makes me happy when I have to push myself to think outside the standard textbook treatments when the results aren’t what I would expect. It never fails to amaze me how a minor shift in strategy can make all the difference in the world to the treatment outcome. This is not to say that oriental medicine does not have its share of certainties and logic that work, but working with the flexibility that acupuncture allows is sure fun. The other side of this empirical coin seems to be the proliferation of ideas that are patently not true. Some things don’t work, but the information seems to keep moving around anyway either because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy, or validates how we want things to be.

Babies & dogs; what can we learn from them? To live in the moment.  It’s a hard thing to do, living only moment to moment and being fully present. I am learning, as a new mom, that you have to be present and in the moment because there isn’t time to be anywhere else.  I am also learning how important it is to embrace and appreciate each second of every day because as we all know, life can change in an instant.  And so....

This past weekend I took a whole weekend off for the first time since opening my clinic, went to the woods for some camping and had some time to think about how good it is to be a community acupuncturist. Here are (just) 10 things I love about it:

10) Feeling good about what I do each day - being able to help people and having no guilt whatsoever about what they are going to have to pay for it because I offer a sliding scale

9) Being able to suggest to patients who need it that they come frequently and having no problem telling them this - I allow people to come as often as they need to in order to get better.

8) Being able to offer acupuncture to people who otherwise would never try it or receive it regularly simply due to the cost.

7) Treating a bunch of people at the same time - not only is it efficient and effective, it's FUN - much more so than one-on-one, in my opinion

I had a boutique Japanese acupuncture practice in Columbia Missouri for six years where I saw one patient at a time.  I used to talk to my patients quite a lot, listen to them, give them advice when they asked for it, and they would occasionally invite me to a party or become a friend.  This was all well and good, but sometimes I would wonder why I often felt so drained at the end of the day.  I found that I needed quite a lot of down time to be alone to recover my energy on the weekend to get ready for the next week.  I would take walks, read novels and watch movies.  How hard could it be, I asked myself, to see patients and treat them with acupuncture and moxa?  It shouldn't be that hard, I thought, besides most of my patients are nice and I like listening to them.

Stretch. Crack my knuckles to prepare them for some serious typing. Exhale. Here comes my blog entry for the month. Scratch my head -- what the Hell do I have to write about?

Ever since my last post announcing my licensing, I've been a dried-up well when it comes time to post a new blog entry. Upon receiving the peice of paper from the California Acupuncture Board, I've been in soak-it-up-and-learn-mode, and I haven't had time for opinions or insights. Well, that has recently changed, so watch out -- here's a blog-thingy from moi.

First, the announcement: WE HAVE A SPACE!!!

("we" = Circle Community Acupuncture, in San Francisco)

That's right, after months of looking, rejecting, being lied to, being rejected, etc we signed a lease. We have 1100 sqft of empty space that we a frantically racing around to fill up and prepare for a September opening. We got our first Lafuma today -- $45 on Craigslist!

“Hey, Keith, we have a bit of a water problem in the back of the treatment room”, Larry whispers calmly, as I pause, catch my breath, and try to figure out who’s next on the list to be treated. Somewhere deep down in the recesses of my mind is the old “oh sh*** you better do something” voice whispering. Somewhere else in there was the little gnome of reason calmly telling my “oh sh**” voice to chill out. “Just grab those extra blankets in back and use them,” I think I said to him. Larry heads to the back of the room, forever cool as the proverbial cucumber.

Does anyone hear remember being in high school and wanting desperately to be accepted, if not by adults and teachers, at least by one's peers. It's difficult to shake ourselves free of mental cobwebs of the past, but essential if we wish to move through the world without living inside the cramped box of old programming.

I don't usually cross paths with acupuncturists that I went to school with. Yesterday and today I bumped into two - neither of whom I knew particularly well, but since we share a common path - acupuncture/holistic medicine - I quite naturally reached out to my fellow professionals in a friendly effort to acknowledge our common community.

The link to the Newsweek article that shows the widening gap between those w/ health-care   and those who don't.   Gov. Kaine of VA says "2/3 of the 46 million uninsured in the U.S. have jobs but can't afford health insurance."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/150846/page/1

Facial Rejuvenation Without Borders (FRWB) recently completed a two-week relief campaign for enemy combatants detained at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Group founder and spokesperson, Emily Shelton, described the visit as a “great success” and hopes to return there in the near future. Speaking from her summer home in Berkeley, California, she said, “Since these guys aren’t going anywhere soon, it would be good for us to go back once a year indefinitely.”