Doing Community Acupuncture in Austin, Texas

It's Wednesday and today the clinic is open from 10am - 6pm. It's about 3pm, and my third patient of the day is asleep in one of the nine recliners in our treatment room. The other eight are unoccupied. It looks like I'll see oh, maybe six people today.

As a micro-business owner there's always stuff to do, and I'm not complaining or concerned about the continued existence of South Austin Community Acupuncture - not by a long shot. Some days are just slower than others. I am, none the less, seeing in an eight hour day today the number of people I could see in one hour. Makes for a long day, and prompts me to do things like blog. Today's topic: Doing Community Acupuncture in Austin, Texas.

Austin is a funny town. In other cities around the country, community acupuncture clinics are getting mainstream press and news coverage, and in one instance at least - a very nicely produced program on the local PBS station (Tucson). It seems in other places community acupuncture is viewed as a community resource, and something worth writing about. Go figure.

In our 3+ years of existence we have gotten exactly one mention in the press, and frankly the writer kind of missed the point. It was a piece about the newly formed South Lamar IBIZ district, and she managed to mention that you could get a mohawk at Bird's for $15 - but that you could get an acupuncture treatment for that amount was lost on the writer. 

The Community Impact newsletter did a spread on the Ben White corridor a few months back. We were not included. The only business mentioned in our complex: Bender Bar and Grill. No Shree Jee Grocery; no Fitness Unleashed; no passport pace, etc., They listed every business in the Southwood Center, west of us, including the wound and rehab clinic, the dialysis clinic, etc., and even went so far as to list every single business in Westgate Village - which is not even on Ben White!!! I emailed the editor about this. Her reply: Obviously, not everyone could be included, and they were trying to feature businesses people may not know about but that they could use. I was truly amazed. Sounds like we fit that profile, given that we offer a service that could truly benefit just about anyone at rates ordinary people can actually afford, and that we occupy a stretch of Ben White where Ben White is underground. If you need dialysis, I think you're going to know where the dialysis clinic is. Seriously, thanks for the information.

Oh well...Look for us in the upcoming Beauty issue of another local rag. No, I'm not kidding. I'll take my press where I can get it.

Next up, I'll be writing about - you guessed it - acupuncture! My observations some 10,000+ treatments into practice, what I think might be some misconceptions about acupuncture, and how acupuncture might be better utilized...oh, and happiness!

Goodnight Austin, Texas - wherever you are....