Lisa Rohleder's blog

Everybody, please take a few minutes to check out this link:

http://change.gov/agenda/health_care_agenda/

and submit your ideas. And if you feel so moved, share what you wrote with the rest of us, in a comment.

I can really understand why many different people, reading this blog, would feel hurt, attacked, misunderstood, unfairly maligned, and on top of it all, bewildered.

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!)

A couple of weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with John Weeks of The Integrator Blog. He had asked me for an update about how things were going, and I mentioned that we had just had a banner week at WCA; 448 acupuncture treatments, including a total of 73 new patients.

Back in June, I got a call from a freelance NPR reporter about doing a story for the show Marketplace about community acupuncture.

This is sort of a public service announcement...Skip and I just got back from a lovely visit with Korben and Ellen (and their families) in Philly, and I feel the need to draw some extra attention to the fact that Philadelphia Community Acupuncture needs to hire another acupuncturist pretty much immediately. All of PCA's shifts are full all the time, and their patients are starting to complain that they can't get appointments. In fact, we were all sitting together at a sidewalk cafe when a patient of Korben's walked by, said hello, and mentioned that he was having trouble getting an appointment. This is a stellar opportunity for a new acupuncturist to work with some wonderful colleagues and to be busy immediately -- as well as to live in a really cool, interesting, diverse neighborhood. Heck, if I didn't have other commitments, I would be applying for this job. Korben and Ellen have gotten a handful of responses to their job posting, but not enough to get the hiring process going.

WCA just showed up in Portland's shiniest periodical, Portland Monthly Magazine, in their "Best of the City" issue: "our surefire, gotta-get-cracking, must-do list of the city's most fabulous people, places, and things". And not even in the "local color"  section, in the beauty section of all places. Of course, the needle -er and needle -ee in the photo, our acupuncturist John and receptionist Carolyn, are of course extremely attractive. But what is this strange feeling I'm having? Is this what it feels like to be fashionable?

I’ve been thinking about the fracas, brouhaha, kerfuffle (or whatever you want to call it) that broke out in the comments under Matt’s post “Teaching CA in Schools”.  I decided to put my thoughts into a letter to the CAN Board and post it in the forums, rather than add to the above-mentioned fracas, or post my whole letter here on the front page.  How come?

Has anybody else seen this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

Be sure to click "watch in high quality" right underneath the video.

My favorite comment on YouTube about it: "This is just so ridiculous -- so why am I crying?" 

And my second favorite comment: "ANYBODY WHO IS HAVING A BAD DAY SHOULD WATCH THIS VIDEO"

I think I might have to use it, plus Justine's post, to explain why I love community acupuncture. Or I might just keep watching it over and over.

We finished the book.

Hurray! Then we re-read it.

It still doesn't work.

A thousand curses

instead of spring blossoms or

clouds or whatever

fill up my haiku.

That figures. Sorry, comrades.

Time to start over. 

Check this out! A balanced, affirming, friendly article about community acupuncture in Portland from a mainstream source:

http://www.livepdx.com/Articles/Portland-Health-Beauty/?launch_pg=Aritcl...

I think we're making progress.

Dan Clements of the Alternative Health Practice Blog sent me an email saying that he had put up a post titled "7 Ways to Make Peace with Your Fees" in response to the dialogue that Burton Kent and I had. I like Dan and his writing, so I went and checked it out, and then it got me thinking. And I'm wondering what you all would think. Note: this is an acrimony-free conversation so far, and I'm pretty sure it will stay that way -- so all of you who are tired of fee- related acrimony need not fear.

http://alternativehealthpractice.com/2008/06/7-ways-to-make-peace-with-y...

The July/August issue has a lovely picture of Ellen and Philadelphia Community Acupuncture! Congratulations again to Pam Chang for her fabulous article, reprinted for an even wider audience!  Seriously, everyone -- if you're having any trouble at all explaining what you're doing and why you're doing it, Pam's article plus the photo of PCA is the answer to your prayers. www.utne.com

Last night at work I had one of those lovely moments of gratitude and fulfillment -- courtesy, of course, of a patient.  Bethany has been seeing me since early 2005; she just graduated from law school, so she's been dealing with all the different kinds of stress associated with that (physical, mental, etc.) for the last few years.  Acupuncture has worked really well for her.  When her stepmother and her little sister came to visit her last year, she brought them in to WCA too.  They live in Ashland; her stepmother was having some acute pain that really required a series of treatments right in a row, more than I could give in her brief visit to Portland, so I was very happy to be able to refer her to People's Choice Community Acupuncture in Ashland. "Go see Chad as soon as you get back home!" I suggested -- and she did!  

So for anyone who hasn't been following the conversation over at Burton Kent's blog (http://www.acupunctureclinicmarketing.com/sanborn-maxim/#comments), it's gotten, um, "animated". Which I think is a good thing.

There is potentially a lot to say about all of it, but I want to use this post to focus on responding to a specific set of comments, and to reflect back on some of the issues that started this conversation in the first place.

First, to Jared: I'm sincerely glad you figured out what works for you in your practice. I think it's great that you love your patients and that you listened to them. The more people who get acupuncture, in whatever setting they get it, the better. And thank you for saying that you tried the community acupuncture model and it didn't work for you. People need to hear that.