ellengrover's blog

This is new - I am blogging during a shift since a new patient is not showing up.  One of the patients who did, however, just told me that Marketplace aired more about the acupuncture piece in their bimonthly letters broadcast on Tuesday.  Here's the link:

There's a link below to a recent Citypaper article about our clinic - it uses the same photo we gave to the Utne reader (but there's a caption this time, and I quoted part of it in my blog title).  

After a slow June, it seems like this article may be helping to make us super busy again (phew!).  And, I just have to report the best response to it so far:  a phone message from someone yesterday who said she saw the article, and was interested in attending a training to learn how to do what we do. She loves healing and has a degree in biology.  We'll call her back today to give her the bad news about licensing and the $100,000 education.  

A patient started coming to see me recently - her first acupuncture ever - because she was getting ready for insemination.  She was getting a lot of acupuncture to increase her chances.  Since we weren't open on one of the days she wanted acupuncture, she went to someone closer to her home.  She confessed this to me today.  

"I feel like I cheated on you!"  she said.  "I went to another acupuncturist on Wednesday..."  

Last week I got an email from the organization that gave me and Korben a loan when we were starting out 7 months ago.  The subject line announced a women-owned business award of $2000.  I almost ignored it completely but it was nagging at me.  I read it.  All you needed to compete, it said, was a completed business plan and a compelling reason that your business could use the money.  I called and it turned out that last year, only one person had applied for it.  I had hope.  

To make a not-so-long story even shorter, I am blogging to say that I filled out the application, sent in the business plan and required legal pieces of paper, and a few days later received a phone call saying that I had won the $2K.  That night they came to interview and photograph me.  Next week I am going to pick up the check.

Patients have started asking this question again:  "How long have you been in practice?" I always hate to admit I've only been out of school for a couple of years, but really, it's just a horribly flawed question if the person is trying to figure out how much experience you have or don't have, let alone trying to figure out if you are reliable or able to help them at all.  I don't believe that more experience = better at acupuncture, but just in case it does, community acupuncture is the fastest track around.  

One of the great things about using an online scheduling service like Appointment Quest is that it counts things for you, like how many patients you've seen in any given length of time.  A search just revealed that I have had 1576 appointments in the past 7 months since Philadelphia Community Acupuncture opened.  That averages out to 53 patients a week, including the early and slower months.  I am probably seeing about 65 patients a week right now.