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.