Editorial JCM 138

I have long found it somewhat disquieting just how differently acupuncture can be practised - often to the point where what different practitioners are thinking and doing in clinic becomes virtually unrecognisable as the same discipline. One practitioner might balance an element with one or two needles, while another goes full orthopaedic with motor point and nerve-focused needling; some practitioners insert needles according to cerebrospinal pulsations while others calculate the right points according to an astronomical chart or the trigrams of the Yi Jing; one practitioner E-stims every patient in sight while another engages qi with the subtle touch of a teishin; yet another chooses to die on the hill of pulse diagnosis whilst to some the pulse is a parlour trick akin to cold reading. Adherents and teachers of these different approaches and teachers tend to be - by definition - committed to their own method, and of course they all enjoy a certain amount of success in the clinic. ‘Let one hundred flowers bloom!’ we might chorus ... but such multiplicity brings problems, not least in terms of public perception, regulation, intra-professional communication, education and so on.