Justine's blog

One of the best parts about being a community acupuncturist is in being a part of CAN.

In early December I had the pleasure of meeting and treating Charlotte (Charlie) Stone, president of ACMAC (Association of Community and Multibed Acupuncture Clinics) in the UK, and founder of Lewes Community Acupuncture.  It was such a joy to discuss our experiences

I received the latest issue of Acupuncture Today in the mail yesterday.  On the front page was THIS ARTICLE.  Read and weep.  Then do something about it!

 

I’ve got some staggering news for those who might not already know it: acupuncture is not rocket science.  Not even close.

Dramas, comedies, documentaries... I'm not talking about movies, I'm talking about work - real-life, everyday situations.  This stuff is better than Shakespeare (at least in my biased opinion).  And so this month I will share with you 2 little vignettes from the clinic: one that has been truly moving and rewarding to me, and a second that is multifaceted and laced with humor.

It’s been two years since I graduated NESA and got my first job practicing community acupuncture.  In October of 2007 I began my work at Manchester Acupuncture Studio, where I took to my reclining patients with my stack of cheat sheets, which included such notes as balance method channel connections, extra points and internal balance patterns.  I was excited to be working and trying all this n

Last month I wrote about how things had slowed down quite a bit in June, and how, at the time, it led me to re-consider what I might be able to improve on.  I think that the slowdown and the time to consider my work was a bit of a blessing in disguise, because it really did get me thinking about what I could do better - and fortunately I had many wonderful suggestions from many of you to fue

I don’t know if it’s just coincidental, but there was a major slowdown in my clinic just after Memorial Day weekend, which I initially attributed to the coming of summer here in the Boston area, a metropolis filled with university students and enthusiastic summer vacationers.

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

My clinic has been an assistantship site for NESA students since last September.  It has been a joy and a tremendous help to have students assist me.  As a practitioner I enjoy teaching them about acupuncture and herbs, and exposing them to a community acupuncture setting.  I love getting fired up talking about the community model with them and hearing what their thoughts on the model are at th

I just thought you'd all like this.

Last night I dreamt that a friend/colleague of mine decided to open a veterinary community acupuncture clinic.

It wasn't the same set-up as your usual CA clinic.  Instead there were all these little pet beds around the room, and several acupuncturists, each attending to a different pet at the pet beds.

What qualities do community acupuncture clinics share? CA clinics make acupuncture affordable and accessible by offering acupuncture in community settings with sliding scales of $15-40.  What is important to recognize is that community acupuncture is NOT a chain of practices and practitioners who all do the same exact thing.

Maybe this information comes as no surprise to all of us who already practice, but I thought it would be nice to share it anyways.  Although these responses reflect the feedback of my own patients at my own clinic, I do think some of the comments do pertain well to community acupuncture in general, and may be helpful to others just in regards to having more ideas on how to do things in their

I left work tonight feeling so very satisfied.  This feeling has been happening more and more recently, and for good reason – the clinic seems to be on a good roll – numbers are up significantly over the last month or so and have been steadily increasing little by little each week – the power of word of mouth is becoming more and more noticeable and substantial – and the miracles of acupu

While I am grateful to be able to offer people ideas, support and an opinion on community acupuncture as most of us practicing are, I can’t help but feel that what I am saying has been fairly redundant and, at times, feels futile.  It seems to me there are often people posting within the CAN forums who are trying to decide if this community acupuncture thing is really for them – if they

Some neat things have happened recently pertaining to the whole "community" aspect of my clinic, by way of CAN, students, my own patients and my clinic's location in Cambridge.

Building a bit on what Skip mentioned in his last post, since of course it resonated with me very much... I thought I'd share my thoughts in my own experience of transition to community acupuncture.

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:

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