As an acupuncture physician and nutritionist many of the people on my daily schedule are looking for alternatives to the industrial medicine complex and its reliance on pharmaceutical interventions. While pharmaceuticals are fast-acting, which makes them attractive in our modern society of quick fixes, their side effects are often intolerable and at times even deadly, so patients look for “natural” and holistic alternatives.

I woke up this morning to another article about an athlete’s career ending because they got a pneumothorax (lung puncture) after receiving dry needling from a physical therapist. This upsets me because 1) this injury is happening way too often, 2) gives all of us in the needling professions a bad look, and 3) is completely avoidable with proper education.