June, 2007

In 1997 I realized that I was a mess, in a musculoskeletal sense. I had back pain all the time and scoliosis. 25 years of chiropractic care may have delayed this moment of truth a few years, but not a single one of them (DCs) had a real solution. Not knowing what to do, I vowed to find the solution myself. I sensed that it would be a combination of acupuncture with something else. Looking back on that moment now, with my added years of acupuncture experience, I would still say that acu plus "something else" would be the best course, even though I now have greater faith in needles. I'm writing this in response to this week’s entries about injured knees and backs from leaning and kneeling to treat patients in recliners. I may be able to contribute something to the discussion here because I spent a lot of money and a lot of time learning something called Hanna Somatics, which has been the key to recovery for me.

My clinic, Providence Community Acupuncture has been open for just six months. At first the clinic was only open one day a week, then two, then three. Now it’s open four days a week for a total of 26 ½ hours, employing two acupuncturists. I work in the clinic about 16 hours per week, but there are other work related things to do when the clinic is not open like bookkeeping, accounting, cleaning, and working in the garden.

I want to comment on a subject that Skip brought up on the Forum some time ago: the fact that our profession seems, at this time, to not have any sort of organization that clearly represents us and/or has a transparent agenda on where OM should be heading. He cited the abysmally attended conference hosted by the AAAOM in New Orleans and pointed out that many, if not most, of the presenters/attendees appeared to be representatives of AAAOM or other (state) organizations or vendors.

I am one of the many people who read Lisa Rohleder’s article in Acupuncture Today
on social entrepreneurship. I was still a student at Southwest Acupuncture College in Albuquerque, New Mexico and already planning my move to Portland. Lisa’s article motivated and inspired me to rethink how I would go about practicing acupuncture. She was the only voice I heard that offered an alternative to the traditional and standard one-on-one practice model. Finding a way to develop a practice that can reach the most number of people while being creative, fun and true to your nature. What??? I soon became the unofficial community acupuncture spokesperson at my school.

As many of you may recall, when you first start acupuncture school you have to, at least in my school, introduce yourself in nearly every class and say what brought you to acupuncture school. I never really told the whole truth, it was a little too personal at the time.

The reason that I rarely share is that my sister was diagnosed with cancer, malignant melanoma, a little while ago. She is young, healthy and never had any major health problems before that. My world was rocked to say the least. The idea of my sister suffering in any way or worst of all losing her was beyond my comprehension. We were so fortunate because it was caught early enough and removed and things returned to normal. The thing is, cancer is funny, and it could come back at any time, especially this type. I wanted to help. I wanted to make sure that it never came back and she lived forever, well longer than me at the very least.

I've jumped off of the cliff and am free falling. Am I a little nervous? You bet. Am I exhilarated? Yep, that too, but I've got my parachute on and that's Working Class Acupuncture in Portland, OR. They are showing me the way.

Not me -- I have a diploma and a license and less than a year of practice under my belt. I wish I could be more proud of my novice status, but I am too sensitive to the awkward pause of disappointment when I report the facts to those asking how long I have been out of acupuncture school. This society is pretty overtly oppressive to those just starting out in most things in life. There are millions and millions of people stuck in careers they hate just because they know that they couldn’t afford to start over again. That’s some serious oppression. I recently heard a story from an elementary school teacher who said that by the time her students are in first grade, they have already somehow learned to treat the kindergarteners as inferior people. I guess Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind wasn’t on the pre-K curriculum.

Lately, especially since Memorial Day, I’ve been thinking a lot about the War (or wars, to be more precise); about the realities of war, alternatives to warfare, and also the uses of war as metaphor. Illness is often spoken of in martial terms: one battles against cancer, and there’s a War against AIDS. Certainly one can be grateful for the existence of “big guns” (pharmaceuticals, high-tech surgeries) when dealing with such life-threatening illnesses and serious accidents.

I'll have the honor this weekend of addressing a small group as part of NH's Minority Womens Health Conference. Access to care is a large part of their agenda, along with promoting cultural competency in the greater regional health care community.

In preparing for the talk, it occurred to me this will be the first time I will have had the chance to answer questions about acupuncture, and talk about CAN and my clinic in a semi-formal setting. This also means I won't have to suffer along with the audience when the fateful 'how much does it cost?' questions gets asked. I had got used to sheepishly answering '$60/visit' as my previous role of BA staff acupuncturist directed me to do so. Instead of feeling as though a firecracker has been tossed toward me, I can now assuredly volley back 'as little as $15' without a blink.

What a relief.

Andy Wegman

Throwing the doors open to Manchester, NH's 1st CAN entry last week was satisfying for sure. I have to say however, I didn't expect to have as much fun as I did at our 'Open Studio' Bash this past weekend.
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Several moments from the CA Conference @ WCA last fall continue to echo for me - Diana's impromptu rendition of a great song she wrote imploring action NOW for what she knows as the right thing to do; Lisa's emotionally raw (and typically uber-honest) explanation of why class issues remain a consistent starting point for her considerations of the inequities of delivering health care in the States; and Maria Perez recounting the (then) recent Open House party for Brooklyn Comm. Acup.

I am one of the growing number of Twin Cities (MN) practitioners with a small clinic. We're open 3 days per week. My full-time job is being mom to my 17-month old son Elijah.

Elijah was born 3 weeks after I graduated with my OM Masters degree. I didn't have a chance to join the professional side of the acupuncture world until 11 months later. That was ok with me. I was and am SO happy to be a mom, and to be my son's primary caregiver. For me, that is happiness. I felt annoyed when my mind gradually jumped a bit into the "I've got this skill that's really useful and was expensive to obtain...maybe I should start using it" mode.

I read Lisa Rohleder’s article Acupuncture and Social Entrepreneurship in the March 2006 Acupuncture Today and loved the idea but wondered how they did it. How could they see so many patients so quickly?

The Community Acupuncture Network actually began as an afterthought. In December of 2005, Acupuncture Today advertised for new columnists. What the heck, I thought, and applied to write a column about the emerging field of social entrepreneurship. Much to my amazement, they accepted the column, and published it in February 2006. Attached to every Acupuncture Today column was a “Talk Back Forum”, an online message board where readers could communicate with the columnist. Right away, acupuncturists who read the column began writing on the Talk Back Forum, first to me, but soon to each other: questioning and examining the ideas in the column, goading the discussion along, pestering each other for details, and eventually, spurring an online community to life.