Thanks bugged out.
An Acupuncturist undertakes a 4 year degree and approximately 2000 hours of training.
A dry needling course is 70-100 hours and generally done by physios or chiros to complement their techniques. It provides them basics on local trigger point treatment of sore points with no particular focus or understanding of traditional acupuncture points and their actions. For musculoskeletal conditions dry needling can be effective as your friend attests to.
They call it dry needling as they can not hold themselves out to be acupuncturists.

Thanks for the tip about photos, I plan to add some in future when posting about treatments for specific conditions - eg - infertility, allergic rhinitis (hayfever), addictions and irregular menses to name a few.