Forward by Dr. Leon I. Hammer

Some years ago an extensive survey of acupuncturists found that only one in three graduates of an American acupuncture college was in practice after five years. An earlier study by the New England School of Acupuncture of their graduates found approximately the same statistics. Lorne Brown makes the case that an exquisite knowledge and performance of a skill such as acupuncture is an exercise in futility if it is not realized in a successful practice. He has written a book whose precepts, if followed reasonably well, would reverse those figures and allow for the realization of the goal of acupuncturists: to spend their life doing what they love, healing with Chinese medicine. A Chinese medical practice is ordinarily built by one successful treatment, one satisfied patient at a time. Acupuncturists do not have hospitals where they were residents or have privileges referring patients. Dr. Brown presents a superb program that also builds character and the personal attributes necessary to an ongoing successful practice that obviates the dependence on hospital referrals and the self-defeating sense of entitlement.

Dr. Brown emphasizes attitude, first of all toward money, that reminds me of what my grandfather told me: “There is nothing wrong with money. It is the love of money that is the problem.”

Read this book, learn and practice its suggestions, and then succeed and be fulfilled.

Leon I. Hammer, MD
Author of Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies: Psychology & Chinese Medicine and Chinese Pulse Diagnosis: A Contemporary Approach and the founder of Dragon Rises College of Oriental Medicine