Physical therapists receive an education that provides them with a medical understanding of the body's function and of gross anatomy. Further, the DPT education focuses on modern principles of evidence based practice. As a clinical doctor, PTs focus on treatments which have been demonstrated to provide specific, directed improvement in the health of our patients using proven treatments and our clinical reasoning, which is founded medical knowledge of anatomy. 

While it is not for me to say that acupuncture does not work, there are a number of studies which demonstrate that the clinical effect of acupuncture (which differs significantly in how it utilizes needling both in its theoretical basis and its method of application from the dry needling utilized by PTs) is null, or so small as to be considered statistically null. There are certainly individual patients who believe that acupuncture works for them, but another thing that also has been shown by the literature to produce improvement (or, at least the perception of improvement) in patients is the placebo. 

Dry needling is fundamentally different than acupuncture. It is based on trigger points and the knowledge of muscle and other structures on the basis of medical anatomy, rather that acupuncture's "qi", or life force. It also penetrates the dermis, thus making it more plausible that it has real, demonstrable effects on the musculoskeletal health of the patients who recieve it. Further, there have been a number of studies done that show improvement of patient's musculoskeletal conditions when they received dry needling (as opposed to the control group, which used "sham" dry needling in which the needle did not puncture the skin). 

It is true that PTs require more clearly established outlines regarding dry needling certification. However, there should be no doubt that PTs, as clinical doctors, possess the skills necessary to carry out dry needling as one modality in their very large, facts- and science-based skillset. In a nutshell, dry needling is both fundamentally different from acupuncture, as well as a modality which PTs, once trained in the modality by certification course that meets the APTA's guidelines for dry needling certification.