The Imploding Acupuncturist

First, thanks for the great responses to my previous post about the relaunch! It's nice to have a blog where you can get 10 comments on a post. That kind of interactivity confirms for me that I've made a connection with you guys in the past, that these topics are relevant for you, and that maybe I can help or give you some ideas in the future. Thanks! :-)

Please continue to go to the bottom of the latest blog post and post your comments. I'd love to see discussion amongst you guys too- I was thinking maybe I should put up a bulletin/discussion board for that. Let me know if you like that idea.

There were a lot of responses to what happened with me and my practice. I also got questions about my personal health plans, but I won't get into that this time- I want to keep my messages short!

Before I get into talking about the practice, I want to ask a favor- if you've read my book, Powerful Body Peaceful Mind, please write a quick review about it on Amazon.com. Someone who developed a resentment toward me wrote a really unfair, mean review there, and since there aren't many reviews, it gives new people the wrong idea. I don't know who wrote it- they never contacted me directly- but it's full of untrue accusations. Amazon won't respond to me about removing it. I'd appreciate your help in countering it with the truth- please write a quick review there so people who've never heard of me can get a more accurate picture. Thanks!

My thoughts about acupuncture practice:

1. Patients: the kind of people that are open to acupuncture and interested in it.

• Spirituality: Many of these people are into new age spirituality and relativism- I'm a Christian and so it's a bit difficult to talk about that honestly without a debate happening.


• Science: A bunch of them believe in all alternative medicine and don't like conventional western medicine and research- I started school that way but got heavily into biomedical mechanisms and research. I thought and talked about that probably more than some patients wanted.


• I hesitated to speak much about Chinese medicine theories of qi, yin and yang because I always felt I should qualify the theories with biomedical explanations and


• I also wondered whether patients were taking a spiritual or medical view of those theories.


• Yes, I think too much. For more about acupuncture, science, and spirituality, see my ChristianAcupuncture.com website.

2. Care: the type of acupuncturist that seems to satisfy patients most (this is less relevant in non-competitive cities) is the semi-codependent nurse-type. I don't mean codependent in a bad way, just as opposed to the narcissistic tendencies of the stereotyped doctor. I am admittedly more narcissistic and focused on results in a scientific way.

• Care vs. research: People want to feel better, and I wanted that but I also wanted to know which things I did helped them- if you really want someone to get a response in acupuncture, you can load them up with lots of needles, but you want clearly know what worked. In research, some people don't get better and it advances knowledge of what didn't work or where the diagnosis was wrong, but the individual patient wants to get better.


• Medicine vs. coaching: I wanted to fix people's medical issues, not guide them through a psychological or spiritual process. But I also wanted to avoid any of the transference that comes from patients thinking their acupuncturist is a spiritual guru.


• Repetitive talking: I wanted to be able to help more people without having to explain the same things over and over (one motive for writing my book).


• Cost vs care availability: I wanted to see more people so I could charge them less and help more than just the financially privileged patient. Most acupuncture schools teach you to spend a hour with a patient- that means you either can't make a living or you overwork... and you spend a lot of that time either doing an inefficient intake, or not following a treatment plan that doesn't require re-evaluation every visit, or doing psychospiritual counseling that you don't get paid for separate from the value of your diagnosis and acupuncture.

3. Business: I just wasn't ready to run an acupuncture practice.

• Systems: I didn't have systems in place (though I wouldn't have known what I wanted until I had done it in ways I didn't like),
• Assistance: I didn't have a receptionist (you really need someone competent to schedule new patients, deal with patient calls, keep you on schedule in the office, etc.), and
• Worries: I let all those worries in #1 and #2 above get in the way of my desire to help people and earn a living. I ended up not wanting to call new patients back and dreading going to see patients.
• Confidence: Most importantly, I wasn't confident enough. I felt like patients wanted answers and assurances I couldn't give them. But I think that's common even to MD's who have to give bad news and tell patients the limits of medicine and diagnostics. It's difficult to convey how little we know, and that we aren't always successful in healing and don't always know why some get better and some don't.
• Execution: Despite having been to my wife's practice management seminars multiple times for free, I didn't put what I knew about running the business into practice. In fact, I have found that it's much easier to learn what to do than to actually do it and do it consistently. I can't tell you how many how-to and self-help books that I didn't apply, and I know I'm not alone in that. That makes me think about my book, which I tried to make easy to apply, but I should probably create more audio help and a discussion forum for that too!

Clearly, if I did practice again in the future, I'd have to sort all that out and run the practice efficiently. Actually, just writing about it has helped some. And I think that's plenty about my practice for now!

Now, please let me know what you think about this post by going to the bottom of it and clicking on however many "comments" there are. Also, at the bottom of the blog post you'll see a number of little icon images: if you put your mouse on them, you see names like Digg and Del.icio.us. If you don't know what they are, this is a way to let people know that you like a blog post. The more people who do that, the more likely other people are to find it. I hope you take the time to click especially on digg and delicious, start an account with them, and "tag" my posts. It'll help a lot, thanks!

Also, if you haven't checked out the righthand column of this blog, there's the email signup, links to past blog writings, links to links to articles and research on other websites, and my recommended and personal website links. You'll notice I do a lot more than just Chinese medicine... music, outdoor stuff, and so on.

That's a wrap. All the best! Brian

P.S. Don't forget to write a quick review on Amazon.com and add your comment to the blog post. You can even email the post to someone by clicking on the envelope icon.

P.P.S. If you can't figure out all that blog commenting mumbo jumbo, just email me a hello or question if you want! :-) B