Chinese Medicine Notes

Acupuncture is Like Noodles- a Review

Posted on July 19, 2009 by Yael

I’m happy to have one of Roy Green Pach’s posts on CMNotes.
Ah, I wish you could read Hebrew. If you did, you could read Roy’s great posts about Community Acupuncture on his Hebrew blog, and see how he shares what goes on in his head in such a beautiful way.
Today Roy is talking about Lisa Rohleder’s book “Acupuncture is like Noodles”. We already heard from Lisa herself, when Roy interviewed her, and now we can read and hear more from the woman who made a difference in the Chinese medicine world in the west.
Enjoy!

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Needle=Noodle
A Review of the Book: “Acupuncture is like Noodles” by Lisa Rohleder,
 Founder of the Community Acupuncture Movement

Lisa Rohleder and Portland’s Workingclass Acupuncture staff’s new book came out about 2 months ago. In my opinion, this is a mandatory book for all practitioners of Chinese medicine. True, I’m not objective, and yes, I’m a raving fan. But this book is simply unlike any other book on Chinese medicine. It manages to breath new life into our whole way of thinking about Chinese medicine and the practice of medicine in general. In fact, the book is intended not solely for practitioners but for anyone interested in public health – either as an employee of the system or just as someone who’s in need of its services. One may agree or disagree with what is written in it, but to remain indifferent would be very difficult.

Lisa Rohleder, founder of the community acupuncture movement in the U.S., has a rare ability to refine complex issues and to simply and eloquently present them with courageous clarity.
For example, the comparison she makes between acupuncture and noodles.

This comparison originated in the “Little Red Book for Practitioners” she wrote in 2005, where she describes the Pho restaurants scattered all over Portland, Oregon, in which richly nourishing 5$ bowls of noodle soup are served. These restaurants are very popular among working class people, although one may find in them a vast array of customers from all classes – simply because the soup is so nourishing, healthy, tasty and cheap.
 
The vision held by the community acupuncture movement is that acupuncture clinics would resemble these Pho restaurants – that they would be accessible to the wide public on every street corner, that they’d offer a healthy and nourishing experience, and that they would provide a sustainable living for their owners.

There are many ways to serve noodles – from soup kitchens to Pho restaurants and up to gourmet restaurants that serve sophisticated noodle dishes to the connoisseurs that can afford them. One of the questions posed in the beginning of the book is: what if there were a severe famine crisis in the town you lived in, and only you and a small group of people had the knowledge and ingredients to make noodles. Would you then feel obligated to make as many dishes possible in order to feed your community? And if so, how would you choose to serve them – as a gourmet meal in a prestigious restaurant for the few who have enough money to afford it, or as an accessible and nourishing meal, like in those Pho restaurants?

The comparison to Chinese medicine raises some serious questions. The above example may be a bit extreme, as those who do not receive acupuncture are not usually in any immediate danger to their life, but the question remains – do we really feel and believe that humanity needs acupuncture? Do the millions of people whose quality of life depends on taking pills, who spend a fortune on shrinks, who carry around their pain as some necessary evil, whose fore coming stroke might be prevented – can they benefit from an amazing and side-effect free therapeutic tool which costs pennies to administer? Do we, the practitioners, feel any kind of responsibility, as those who learned to use this tool? And if so, how do we choose to “serve” them this medicine?

The first part of the book describes the community acupuncture revolution as the work of a busy restaurant:
The kitchen- what recipes are used by the Workingclass Acupuncture clinic, i.e. the main treatment protocols for most health issues and the approach to theories. This part is especially interesting since it is based on the experience of a clinic that administers over 400 treatments a week – it might be worth hearing from them what works and what doesn’t….

The dining room- what the treatment area looks like, and what systems were developed to ensure the smooth run of the clinic. This part describes how a clinic in which each practitioner sees 6 patients an hour is managed.

The last part of the book deals with the community acupuncture revolution in the context of the American healthcare crisis. One of the arguments put forth in the book is that for acupuncture to be able to help millions of people across America and save hundreds of millions of dollars to the healthcare system, the acupuncture establishment itself must revolutionize it’s way of thinking.

The vision presented is largely based on the existence of NADA treatments, where a 70-hour training program can grant any practitioner an effective tool for treating not only addictions, but stress and pain as well.

The NADA model proves that acupuncture treatments can be given on a large scale to the wide public. A quicker training of acupuncturists (for instance, 18 months instead of a 4-year program that includes herbal medicine and Tuina) would lower the tuition dramatically, and give a chance to people with lesser means to acquire the profession and open clinics in the communities they belong to and resonate with. Furthermore, a quick training of nurses, care-providers and anyone qualified to administer an injection or I.V. in some basic acupuncture protocols, can broaden the exposure to acupuncture within the healthcare system and deepen the familiarity of the population with its wonders.

But the acupuncture establishment in the U.S., according to Lisa Rohleder, has been able to convince a lot of people that acupuncturists need to be more than just “mere technicians”, and is defending its territory so that only those who have a 4-year acupuncture school training and a license would be allowed to treat people with needles. Is the consideration here really the safety of the public? Or perhaps behind this lies the wish to strengthen the status of practitioners and to equate it with that of other complementary professions, so that they could demand higher compensation for their services from the insurance companies? Lisa eloquently responds to the claim of turning acupuncturists into mere “technicians”:

“This is a good example of classism in action, because the truth is that a well trained technician is of much more use to society than an overeducated theorist who rarely or never applies what he learned – particularly when what we are talking about is the ability to relieve suffering. A whole lot of us would be proud to be called acupuncture technicians, if it meant we were of use to our communities.”

It is very interesting to compare this to the situation in Israel, where acupuncturists are not yet licensed, but the practice of acupuncture is not limited to those with a 4-year education and is used by doctors, chiropractors and other practitioners. On the other hand, acupuncture is not yet limited to anyone, which is a problem in itself. Will the proposed acupuncture bill manage to be well balanced?

This is a fascinating and enjoyable book that opens the mind and gives a new perspective even to those who do not wish to implement the community acupuncture model.
It can be purchased by clicking here.