When I studied medicine I chose to do my elective in St Lucia. It was great, I mainly dealt with tourists and their minor injuries and I got to have cocktails on the beach after work. Being a doctor I now rarely get to travel with work and when I do it is never glamorous. So when our hospital offered the chance for physicians to take dry needling courses in New Zealand I jumped at the opportunity. Dry needling had interested me for a while as the demand for it is rising, it is always good to increase your skill base and stay up to date with medical practices. A few of us would be going to complete the level one introductory/intermediate course that lasted 3 days. We are staying for a week and it is all expenses paid! Dry needling has become a very popular technique in targeting and deactivating pain trigger points in muscles. The hospital is always looking for us to gain qualifications that keep us relevant in the medical industry. Dry needling is the flat white of the medicine world. I have had quite a few patients with chronic back pain ask me about dry needling as a treatment and as of yet I have not been able to offer it to them. We leave next week to begin the dry needling courses, Christchurch hotel will be overrun with doctors on vacation. When doctors get together things tend to get quite competitive. I once heard two surgeons bickering ferociously over the best way to correct a broken femur, it ended in one dousing the other in his whisky. Hopefully this trip would not see any major medical arguments. Dry needling is all about peace, love and relaxed muscles. If all goes well we may even be returning later in the year to complete the advanced courses.