A hello from Melissa Tiernan, our new punk starting in December

(We are so excited to have Melissa join us. She's an experienced and compassionate community acupunk, and we just like her a lot.)

Hello PCA community!

I'm so honored and thrilled to join the PCA team in serving the people of Rhode Island. Originally from Cranston, I left lil’ Rhody in 1984 to study for a B.A. in English literature and psychology from Middlebury College in Vermont. I headed west to New Mexico where I lived for 22 years having many adventures, most recently having founded and run a successful community acupuncture clinic there. I knew when I found community acupuncture during acupuncture school that I would never practice any other way. I believe that CA offers one of the best, most comprehensive systems for the treatment and prevention of all sorts of conditions and is one of the most fun ways to be of service to my community. 

In my spare time, I love hiking and exploring, discovering great books, food, and music, and being inspired by new ideas and progressive people. I am looking forward to meeting you and also finding out about all your favorite haunts for chowda, grindas and best beaches for body-surfing, which I plan to do every spare minute to make up for 22 years of living in a desert. Can’t wait to see you!

Creating a sensible path to Punkdom.

The last two weeks, we've written about the overwhelming demand for community acupuncture here in Rhody, across the U.S. and Canada, and other places in the world. More clinics are needed. More to the point, many more acupuncturist (punks) are needed to provide the treatments that are so in demand. (*By the way, the PCA team will be joined in early December by a fantastic new punk, a Rhode island native who started her own very successful community acupuncture clinic in the southwest. More about Melissa next week!!)

So, here's one very important way we're going to move affordable acupuncture forward, satisfying the demand, and creating more. Together, punks and patients, clinic founders and volunteers, and other interested stakeholders in affordable natural medicine are pioneering an acupuncture school that WON'T put its students in debt for the rest of their lives and WILL prepare them to do community acupuncture, to do simple, effective but affordable treatments that rely more on the needles and the patients' own bodies/minds and less on some ancient secret wisdom or special powers of the punk.

POCATech is the next natural step in the progression of our movement to create a sustainable business model by which people with ordinary incomes can get regular acupuncture, and we acupuncturists can earn a living wage doing the work we love within our own beloved communities.

Community acupuncture, born in its present form in Portland Oregon through the labors of Lisa Rohleder and Skip Van Meter at Working Class Acupuncture, has grow steadily across the country and beyond, and revealed an almost limitless demand for what we're offering. We created The Community Acupuncture Network which 1) freely shared the know-how and support to committed punks who refused to accept acupuncture as a luxury for the most wealthy, 2) spawned over 100 community acupuncture clinics, and 

3) organized those punks, owners, volunteers and patients into a  cooperative called POCA, which stands for The People's Organization of Community Acupuncture.

Through POCA, our thinking has expanded to include patients, acupuncture students, other health care practitioners, clinic employees. Among and across all of these groups, there is unanimous and urgent support for the idea of creating our own school. Many of us started doing community acupuncture so that our own friends and family and neighbors could actually get regular acupuncture, and get the kind of acupuncture that works in their lives. It's partly the same motivation that drives our vision of POCAtech. My 3 year old son, for example, is very interested in what I do, spends time playing "acupuncturist, loves to come in to the clinic and observe what's happening. He recognizes it as loving, friendly, healing. It's certainly conceivable for him to find himself wanting to be a punk. I want that to be a possibility. And, without POCAtech, it's not.

Please ask us questions about POCATech, how we're going to do it, and how our Rhode Island community will be key to the project. And, please be aware that PCA and Rhode Island will host the annual POCA Fest in the spring of 2013. You are warmly invited to spend a Saturday or all weekend with us. This event is about fun and inclusivity of all parts of our community. We'll be talking coops, clowning, storytelling, envisioning dream clinics in dream locations, meeting each other over board games and good food. And, we'll be moving POCATech closer to reality.

The Moving Train of Community Acupuncture

“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings 

should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

Howard  Zinn, from  "You Can't Be Neutral On a Moving Train."

As promised last week, we’d like to say a couple things about our overly busy schedule, the opportunities this represents, and the ways our whole community of stakeholders in affordable healthcare can help.

1) We’re really busy. This is a good thing. Lots of people in RI are finding out about community acupuncture thanks to word of mouth from their friends, loved ones, and co-workers. People tell people when something makes them feel better and have better lives. Because coming for acupuncture makes people feel better and because most people are dead serious about healing (and because visits are affordable for most) lots of people are getting frequent and regular treatments because that's how it works. Of course we’re busy.

2) We need to hire one or two punks, acupunks that is. And we need more clinics in Rhode Island. The demand for affordable, reliable, trustworthy, and noninvasive healthcare is, obviously, limitless. Talk about job creation.

3) It’s extremely hard to find licensed punks to hire that want a real job and know how to do what we’re doing. (This is a bizarre reality; but, we CAN change it with your help.) This crazy fact exists because, even though there are plenty of wonderful and caring people from within our local community who would love to become punks and work with us or open their own clinics, they cannot nearly afford the exorbitant cost of acupuncture school. And, even if they were independently wealthy or were willing to just be in deep debt for the remainder of their lives, the training that they’d receive at said schools, cash cows who cater to people who will treat upper middle class and wealthy patients, would not at all prepare them to communicate with, much less do acupuncture with, lots and lots of working people with normal incomes and busy busy lives.

4) Part of the solution is to create a new acupuncture school, one which working people or students from working families can afford, and which prepares its students for a real, full-time job as an acupuncturist. That way, with a steady influx of well trained and caring new punks, community clinics can continue to flourish. And, new ones can be born right in the communities that need them.

Next week, we'll say a little more about how that can happen, and how we're already on our way! About what you can do to help. And about a very exciting year for Providence Community Acupuncture

In the meantime, feel free to read more about the new school we're actually starting with your help.

lifistrick

lifistrick........

!! What do you mean the schedule is full? !!

You may have noticed that our schedule has been super full lately. Sometimes, patients are having to wait a day or two to get the time slot they want. We wanted to apologize for the inconvenience, and to say that the ability for patients to get treatments when they need and are able to do them is one of our most important ongoing goals. If you need a treatment right now, we want you to be able to have one. We’re working on the jam. The schedule should already have more slack in it and will probably have more by Thanksgiving. Thanks for your patience.

But, there’s a few important implications of this development. Some temporarily frustrating implications, but mostly some exciting implications. Some implications which have to do with cooperatives, and YOU! 


Over the next few weeks, stay tuned here and on facebook for a little discussion about hiring community acupuncturists, starting new clinics, revolutionizing acupuncture training, and about a very fun conference/party this coming spring right outside of Providence. At the annual POCAfest, community acupuncture punks, patients and other community members from all over North America will be getting together to make big plans and have big fun right here in Rhode Island.

Celebrate Labor Day with a Free Acupuncture Session

Thank you all for your hard work, for the honey you've
helped make. Now, come on in, relax and enjoy some
along with a free acupuncture treatment.

Labor Day has come to mean the end of summer for many people, but the meaning of this holiday is a celebration of all the hard work we do. What better way to celebrate hard work than receiving a free relaxing acupuncture treatment. On Sunday September 2nd from 10a.m. to 4p.m, Providence Community Acupuncture will provide free treatments for all newcomers and $5 treatments for existing PCA patients. Call 401-272-2288 to save a spot in advance.

PCA has been on a mission to provide the Providence community with access to affordable, quality acupuncture and to create living wage jobs for our workers since 2007.  Over the past 4 years PCA has been doing just that, now serving on average 300 patients weekly. Through the dedication of the staff, volunteers and patients PCA continues to grow and generate awareness on the benefits of acupuncture.

Over the last three decades acupuncture has developed in the U.S. and continues to increase in popularity for the treatment of both acute and chronic conditions. Acupuncture is one of the oldest, most common and dependable medical therapies used in the world; it has been proven to be exceptionally safe, and effective. It is by nature simple effective health care.

Acupuncturists use thin, sterile disposable needles inserted superficially into specific areas of the body in order to help the body's ability to heal. All PCA acupuncturists are experienced acupuncturist, and licensed by the state of Rhode Island.  They are passionate about providing high quality acupuncture for a wide range of conditions at affordable rates.

So instead of saying farewell to summer renew, recharge and relax with PCA. Skip the beach traffic and join Providence Community Acupuncture for a free relaxing acupuncture session.
For more information, click here.

Fruits of our Labor

LABOR DAY CELEBRATION: FRUITS OF OUR LABOR:
Sunday, September the 2nd, we'll be celebrating all the kinds of work we all do in our worlds with a harvest-type party in and outside the clinic. The theme is Fruits of our Labor. If you'd like to help us prepare the spread, or clean up, or have ideas about the party, please email us at providencecommunityacupuncture@gmail.

And, don't forget to become a member of the new, world-wide cooperative dedicated to seeding and nurturing community acupuncture. Sign up for the people's Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA) at https://www.pocacoop.com/membership/join-patientcom/