Y Tu Mama Tambien

I nominate DAA (Dee-Double-A) for school mascot. This psychopath occasionally makes an appearance on Joe's whiteboard on the second floor. Despite his rough appearance and aggressive stance, I assure you that DAA has a heart of gold.

Where are our skeleton parts? In the teacher's lounge.

Hi, I'm Jonah Ewell and I'd like to be your student body president for one reason: to get the goddamn skeletons fixed. It's beyond pitiful that we pay five thousand dollars per semester and our skeletons don't have ulnas or fibulas or skulls. It's embarrassing. The official line is that "students take the skeleton parts." Carl Miller told me this before he left, and it's been echoed by our new dean Beau Anderson. Does this even sound plausible? Why would a student go to the trouble of unscrewing a plastic bone, much less taking one home? THE TRUTH is truly disturbing: all the missing parts for our skeletons are on-site at PCOM. They are in the storage cabinet in the teacher's lounge (see photos above). WHY ARE WE BEING LIED TO? WHY CAN'T THE SKELETONS BE PUT BACK TOGETHER? Remember Bruce Lee in "Fists of Fury": WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY???

I'm a one-issue candidate, but I do have some other concerns. PCOM is pretty good. It could be better. There are some great teachers, teachers who really care about Chinese medicine, are highly qualified and enjoy being a part of the education process: Steve Jackowicz and John Pai come to mind. There are also teachers who are just collecting a paycheck and don't care about Chinese medicine - I'm sure you can all think of three or four off the top of your head. Then there are some teachers who know a lot about Chinese medicine but don't care about the students - they don't believe we'll ever be acupuncturists... seventy percent of the time, they're right, but maybe if they tried a little harder and believed in us, the 5-year employment rate would be higher.

Students should do their part too. Study hard. Find the good teachers and treat them well. Publicly shame the bad ones. Learn Chinese. Get as close to the classics as you can - find the best translations, read them in the original if at all possible. Practice taijiquan and qigong. Improve yourself. To paraphrase Jackowicz, the needle is a mirror. You must demonstrate zheng qi so that the xie qi knows how to behave. Experiment with herbs. Be fearless. Vote for me.

The Hun and the Po

A Modest Proposal for Increasing Clinical Efficacy

Did you ever notice, on our clinical intake forms, there's just a tiny little box for noting the points used? There's no place to add technique, time of retention, whether or not you used moxa on the needle, bleeding, et cetera. Also there's very little space for writing the name of the point in Chinese characters or pinyin - which is something I like to do for practice.

I propose that we add this form in the patient's file, just after the intake form. It'll look like this:

Chinese	Pinyin	Alphanumeric	Right/Left/Bilateral	Technique
足三里	Zusanli	ST36	B	tonify - retain 20 min
太冲	Taichong	LV3	B	connecting to Yongquan KI-1
内关	Neiguan	PC6	B	3" needle threading up channel

Of course you could leave parts blank, if you were in a hurry, but think of what a valuable record you would leave for future interns, especially regarding technique. Maybe more columns should be added, for needle length and gauge, or whatever else you can think of.

Marc Cary Focus Trio Record Release Party at S.O.B.'s next Thursday

A special non-TCM related post... a cool NYC event...

THURSDAY JULY 13

SOB'S Presents:

Marc Cary & Focus
Release Party

Doors: 6PM
Show: 7PM

Admission: $5.00

Marc Cary, noted as "One of today's most multi-dimensional pianists" by Downbeat magazine is unleashing his brand of pulsating indigenous rhythms and classical lyricism with the debut of his new acoustic FOCUS trio at SOB's It will be both a release party and a performance. In addition the evening will serve as an introduction to another Marc Cary project, the genre defying Abstrakt Blak. This project is an engaging mix of Jazz, GOGO, Hip Hop Ambient and R & B. The musical definition is in the ears of the beholder. The project is a co-production between Marc Cary and Shon "CHANCE" Miller.

Chinese Medicine in Southern Oregon

Mountain man discovered practicing Chinese medicine in southern oregon, complete with beard... mountain man also has an online store... click picture for website...