Justine Deutsch: 0 to 60 in Under a Year

We get e-mail. Justine Deutsch's e-mail speaks for itself. Wow:

Why I Couldn’t Ask for More

I have been working at Manchester Acupuncture Studio in Manchester, New Hampshire for a little over two months now, and all I can say is, WOW- who knew, just 4 months after graduating from acupuncture school, I could be treating up to 5 patients an hour, feeling relatively grounded with it, getting good patient feedback, really enjoying what I am doing, feeling a healthy mix of emotions that come with such a new endeavor (gaining confidence yet still having a healthy dose of fear and humility, since the more I learn the more I realize how much I don’t know) while earning an honest living and doing something I feel really, really good about deep down inside?! All this is also an exponentially higher amount of experience than I could imagine having at this point were I to be practicing in a “boutique” acupuncture private practice. Andy is a fabulously supportive boss/coworker who I can always learn from and the volunteers are incredibly helpful, giving me direct insight into why their role in the clinic is so important. One of the best parts of all is that I have been able to gain this experience just before getting my own CAP up and running.

These days my new clinic partner Tom and I are working on getting our new clinic up and running in Medford, MA. There are so many details- I knew that starting a practice would require me to wear a few more hats besides acupuncturist and herbalist and would be a challenge- but I had not actually digested the fact that “business owner” could extend to include such a wide variety of jobs! We are simultaneously having a lease prepared, getting our insurance in order, getting our corporation set up, straightening out our finances, setting up a website, deciding what supplies and furnishings we need for our clinic, choosing paint colors for the walls, deciding how we’d like to run things, meeting with our accountant, etc. All this can sometimes feel overwhelming, but then I can thank all of you who have done this before we have, and shown us the way! We didn’t have to re-invent the wheel here; we can follow a simple, effective model (seems simple now, I am sure it wasn’t all that simple when WCA first started) and feel fairly confident that our clinic will succeed and many people will be treated in the near future. Just as you have passed this gift on to us, we hope we may pass it on to others in the future.

Justine’s Bio:
My first exposure to community acupuncture came in February of 2007 with Diana DiGioia’s presentation at NESA, when I was so inspired I almost fell off my chair! I then became a total CAN nerd and visited several clinics (Diana DiGioia on the Cape, Cris Moneiro in Rhode Island, Andy Wegman in New Hampshire), attended the Maine CAN conference and began practicing Dr. Tan style in student clinic as I neared my graduation in August. Feeling very excited about the possibility of becoming a community acupuncturist, I had the good fortune to begin my work treating patients at the Manchester Acupuncture Studio in Manchester, NH in October of 2007. In the meantime, I have been working hard on starting a new CAP in Medford, MA with my colleague Tom Riordan. Tom and I met through the matchmaking powers of CAN and are excited to hopefully have our clinic, Back to Balance Acupuncture Center, up and running in February of 2008.