November, 2008

I came across this article this morning and just had to share:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/fashion/27SKIN.html?pagewanted=1&sq=sp...

Sure, it makes my day to read about cabbies getting 15-minute qi gong treatments between fares (really!?), and I love the name "Ebenezer Eyelash."  But what's really interesting to me about this article is how familiar it feels. 

Where do acupuncture and Oriental medicine providers turn to learn how to integrate?

I’ve been thinking about former board member and CAN co-founder Michael McCoy’s challenge – that we define what does it mean to be providing acupuncture IN a community, rather than FOR or TO a community.

Yesterday, I noticed it starting to wiggle. The foot rest lever on everybody's favorite Cadillac recliner was acting funny, describing strange arcs as I attempted to maneuver people's feet up and down.

I ran across this on the web:

http://themadmyth.livejournal.com/6870.html

xoxoxo to all you CANners (and yes, Skip and I are having a really nice sabbatical!)

My recent posting -Put Your Input In-while focused on the mission, purpose and values of the American Association Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine AAAOM, raised questions and comments about who the AAAOM is, and who they represent.

A woman leaving an acupuncturists office in Echo Park, California, expressed mild confusion and vague irritation after an appointment with local acupuncturist, Terry Vain.  “He told me that my liver was hot.  What the hell does that mean?” 

One of the questions I’ve had ever since this movement got going has been how clinics will look in various parts of the country/world, with all the variation in the people that might come to a CA. Working Class Acupuncture is wildly successful.

I posted this in the Forums, but thought I'd re-post here in order to give more folks access. This article is called: How Community Clinics Can Transform Acupuncture and was written by my business partner, Pam Chang, of the Yes! / Utne fame.

On election night last week, I found myself dancing with a few
hundred people in the middle of Baltimore Ave a couple blocks down
from the clinic. The thumping and clatter of a pots-and-pans drum
jam, the trolley drivers rhythmically honking their horns as if
through a dense and receding fog, the return of ecstatic displays of

Korben asked me to

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.

The long running television serial, a spin off from the original 1970 movie by the same name, has been revived by FoxCiNN as a new reality show with a little twist; instead of