The First Hundred Treatments
or, what it's like to learn acupuncture at POCA Tech
It’s the new year and we just opened applications for Cohort 11! To mark that occasion I thought I’d share an excerpt from a student clinic journal about what it’s like to learn acupuncture in our program. You might have noticed there’s a lot of reflective writing required. One good reason for that is not only do students absorb their experiences more deeply by writing about them, but POCA Tech staff learn too by reading students’ reflections; it’s one of the ways we get feedback.
Recently interns completed an assignment to write a short paper reflecting on their first hundred treatments in clinic. Here’s second year student A.’s paper. (For A.’s reflection after the first day of clinic, see Last Stop on the Try Anything Train.)
Dec 1st 2023
It’s been 5 months since I started as a student intern punk and I’ve delivered 163 treatments in my clinic shifts.
The most notable thing from between the first patient to where I am now is that I now have something of a notion, where previously there was none. I’m watching myself develop in a way that is familiar — the same way that I’ve been developing as a visual artist for the past 23 years.
Before I learn anything- Wonder, anticipation, projection, hope, impatience, and filling in the blanks with fantasy.
Getting into it- Excitement and engagement in the technical aspect of the craft with no real application experience, no intuition, awkwardness and fumbling with the tools, unfamiliarity with what to do with my body in space, being disorganized and not carrying out instructions in the right order, forgetting things, and admittedly some overwhelm like I’m in over my head. Following basic instructions from a print-out or coping from example
Gaining experience and confidence- Mirroring/Modeling competence even if I’m not feeling it, more ease in how to move/economy of movements, following order of operations but not consistently, finding opportunities to flex creativity (and feeling very proud of it), setting out beyond the basics, broaching theory but it’s a huge messy puzzle and how/why makes no sense
It’s been a minute but I’m still pretty green- making mistakes but they’re easier to spot and correct, little/no imposter syndrome, wanting to share ideas by explaining my thought process, pride of craft, developing intuition, learning new tools with a solid foundation to draw from and ability to build upon previous lessons, more flexibility and strategy when using creativity, drawing from conceptual theory (and now it makes way more sense)
So that is where I am at. My needling is more purposeful (because it’s backed by an approach and reasoning i.e. applied theory). The other notable and remarkable thing is that I’m seeing changes in my patients. I am witnessing the roller coaster undulation titration that is healing. I experienced it first hand when dealing with my own various issues — the back and forth of good one day and awful the next, or great for half the day and rotten the other half. Maybe it’s a non-issue for a few weeks and then it’s a nagging ache when the weather shifts. But it is amazing to see it happening for others and to be with them through that, to be trusted and chosen to help.
Edit: Dec 20th 2023
Now at 175 treatments completed, an observation I just made is that past 100 treatments, it’s rare that I have a new condition to add to the list of things that I’ve treated so far. It seems that a lot of people come in with the same issues. In particular, people come to me in batches with the same issues on the same day even. This really helps strengthen my skills as a new practitioner — to notice and develop “go-to” points that work for conditions and use them liberally.
Being at PTI is such a different experience of school. I was allowed to go through this process. As students, we aren’t expected to be perfect. We are not expected to remember everything right away. The amount of information comes in tolerable waves — I don’t drown when it washes over me. We are allowed to make mistakes, and maybe most importantly to identify and improve from them without being constantly fearful of doing wrong. It all serves the purpose of organic growth and incremental development into a professional. I feel competent in a different way, in the experience way!
(For more on this theme, see POCA Tech’s zine The Art of Community Acupuncture. And if you’re interested in becoming a community acupuncturist, here’s the application!)