Articles about
Articles about
January 26th, 2021 — What we’re aiming for is a neutral, analytical, non judgmental, safety-positive relationship to risk. To get there, it helps to identify what might be in the way.
February 4th, 2021 — The phone rings in your clinic. When you pick it up, a patient says, “Hi, I need to talk to you about something. I think that last treatment made me worse.” What do you do next? Here’s an outline of how to create a positive outcome, i.e. make some safety, from this stressful and unavoidable situation. If you treat enough people, you will certainly get this phone call at some point!
February 20th, 2021 — There’s no area of safety practice that isn’t impacted by the need for boundaries.
January 26th, 2021 — Boundaries and empathy don’t have to be in an either/or opposition to each other; creatively making safety (even out of bad situations) allows them to be both/and.
March 31st, 2021 — Or, what I learned about boundaries by having an internet fight with Peter Deadman.
January 18th, 2021 — A common argument among acupuncturists is that nobody can safely practice acupuncture without at least three years of post graduate training at an accredited acupuncture school. Also, dogs.
April 15th, 2021 — A check-in about the state of this project, what’s done, what still needs to be done, and where the Acu Safety Nerd is going afterwards. Link-fest ahead!
January 23rd, 2023 — Myths aren’t the same as fairy tales or folktales or any other story; they’re powerful and generative in a distinct way. Myths can make things happen, for better or worse. I think the acupuncture profession in the US possesses, and is possessed by, one of these: the myth of the scholar-physician with a hospital job.
February 16th, 2023 — It’s common for acupuncturists to suggest that acupuncture schools should teach more business and practice management. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that, but teaching skills without being clear about the level of self-leadership needed to enact them isn’t helpful. A person at Stage 1 who took fantastic classes in marketing, bookkeeping and acupuncture business management but who can’t put any of it into practice without supervision isn’t going to be able to run a small business. It’s not about what you know, it’s about what you’re able to motivate yourself to DO.
March 21st, 2023 — This particular incident is pretty irresistible as a teachable moment because nowhere in our materials on trauma informed care do we really dig into how bureaucracy can function as a trauma trigger, especially for low income people, and I bet there are a lot of people who don’t really understand how that works.
March 21st, 2023 — As passionate as I am about trauma informed care, it was definitely not my goal to put on a demonstration of the need for it.
March 21st, 2023 — In general, when somebody gets triggered by bureaucracy the way I did, the best case scenario for what happens next is NOTHING. The person gets overwhelmed and flees the scene, and that’s all. Maybe they pull themselves together to try again another day. It’s more likely, though, that what follows is punitive consequences in some form or another, from the bureaucracy itself.