Small town advantage?

[Guest guest]

Is there an advantage to opening a practice in a small town or city over a

large city?

 

As some readers know, I recently visited relatives on the other side of the

country. While there I was able to explain and demonstrate some TCM things

to them in person. While staying with one niece, her ex-husband also came

for a visit. I gave him fennel seeds for his digestive problems. He was

impressed, and started using them regularly.

 

One night a woman in the apartment complex came over to borrow something for

a headache. I showed her some vary basic acupressure points for sinus

headaches, and her headache began to go away as she pressed on the points.

She left, and within 5 minutes, her boy friend who also had a headache

showed up, wanting to know if I could do something for his headache like I

had for his girl friend's. His headache was more than just sinus problems

so I showed him some additional points. While I showed both the points, my

niece's ex-husband excitedly was telling them all about what the fennel

seeds had done for his digestive problems.

 

I wonder if healers in small towns have a word of mouth advantage that

healers in large cities do not have?

 

Since I'm not in practice - just a teacher - and knew that I would not be

there to monitor results and that these were people who had never heard of

TCM before, these were just very basic things I showed them. But the results

were impressive to them. Their reactions reminded me of how excited I felt

when I first began to discover what TCM could do. One of the things that

still amazes me about TCM is how some very basic things can help so much.

 

Some of the readers on this list are TCM students who one day will graduate

and hopefully go out into the world and practice and help many people. I

hope that these soon-to-be acupuncturists and herbalists will keep in mind

just how impressive some very basic things and the relief they give are to

suffering people.

 

When one is a student in a formal educational setting, it is very easy

gradually to forget why one wanted to become a healer (or whatever) in the

first place. Through the monotony of a few years of homework, papers,

exams, and deadlines, it's also very easy for one gradually to lose sight of

the " miraculous " . I'm asking you not to forget. Remember that the things

you take for granted because you're so use to them and have grown to accept

them as common place and to be expected are nothing short of amazing and an

epiphany to many of the people you will be treating. Even some of the most

basic things.

 

It also is common for many students - especially the closer they come to

graduation - to be more aware of what TCM (or any other discipline) cannot

do rather than what it can do. It also is common for these students to be

more concerned with what they don't know and can't do than what they have

learned and can do. I'm asking you to make a special effort to think about

what you have learned instead of worrying about what you perceive as your

deficiencies. In my experience, the conscientious students, the best

students, are far harder on themselves than their teachers are, worrying

more about what they don't know than being aware of just how much they do

know. Besides, the longer you're in practice, the more you will learn. In

many ways your real education is just beginning.

 

For those of you who got into TCM because of the relief you or a loved one

got from it - often when nothing else could help - I ask you to never forget

how you felt back then and to remember that other people will one day feel

what you felt back then because of what you do. And remember that in TCM

some very basic things can have quite a positive impact.

 

Victoria

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Hi Victoria,

 

I have lived in very small towns and large cities (Chicago &

NYC). Large cities are

made up of small towns. Large-city small-towns just tend to

be more homogenous.

I don't think there is an advantage re: word of mouth....just possibly

more competion.

....depending on practioners per capita and skills of your

competion....that would be

the same in any size town.

 

FYI: at AOMA, Austin, TX....mandatory are business, ethics and psychology

classes.

We just had a seminar come through on succeeding financially in one's

practice.

 

Kit

PS. Nice post!

 

 

At 09:06 AM 1/31/02 -0700, you wrote:

Is there an advantage to opening a

practice in a small town or city over a

large city?

 

 

I