Conversations with Dr. Duckworth: A New Patient Primer

Q: Do people, generally speaking, find your practice through word-of-mouth?
A: Essentially they do find us through word-of-mouth. We do some Yellow Pages advertising. We do very little other adverstising.

Q: From your understanding, what are patients telling one another? What recommendations induce them to come in for the first time?
A: Usually it's that they've got a condition that has not responded to contemporary medicine. Generally, it's symptomatic. Somebody's suffering from neuropathy and they've been treated by Duckworth and it's helped a lot. Probably a few say, "I feel good and I go to Duckworth." But it's usually more disease- or symptom-oriented.

Q: Do they have a set of expectations when they come in to see you? Or are they wide-open to whatever the experiences may be?
A: Usually, they're wide open to whatever the experience might be. Most of them have not had experiences with Oriental medicince, so they don't have experiences to draw upon. Some people have read about it and approach it from a more intellectual point-of-view. Sometimes they've read about diagnostic techniques and will ask why I do that, or haven't done that. But, overall, people who come to complementary alternative medicine, and to Natural Life Therapy, come to it with an open mind and the allow things to unfold for themselves.

Q: With that in mind, do people, on their own, come to question their dietary, sleep and work habit choices?
A: Well, we do have people who call and ask to address their health isses. And diet in health is a factor, and they ask if we can do something about that. The fair number of people aren't aware that food is part of the healing process; the kitchen is part of their health care. It's introduced to them, rather than them asking about it.

Q: And for those who've had some experiences with other practioners, how do you start to work with them? Especially if they've some basis of comparison?
A: A lot of times we'll first talk about differences. They'll ask what we do differently than other acupuncturists in town. Or, once they've started receiving treatments, they'll notice some differences. There are some major differences and some that are quite subtle. We're a clinic that provides exclusively Japanese-based Oriental medicine, as opposed to Chinese-based Oriental medicine. And there's a difference in approach, philosophically and diagnostically. Even the type of needle used is different. They find the needling techniques here are less invasive. They'll ask, why another practioner's needles hurt more, or why they used more needles and I'll explain the differences between Chinese and Japanese medicines.