The Massage Pundit

My first post on the politics of massage was an easy-going encouragement to therapists to get involved in their governance.  I’m afraid this one is a rant.

As I mentioned last week, six representatives of the NCBTMB attended my state’s (NC) Board meeting recently.  Many of the officers of the NC AMTA chapter were present also, as were a lot of school owners and program directors.  I am a member of our state Board and was present for the meeting. What I didn’t find out until after the meeting has made me madder than a wet hen. 

Our state’s practice act is before the legislature right now with several much-needed revisions that AMTA and our Board have agreed are necessary, after several years of discussion and compromise on the part of both parties.  Our state is a member of the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB) and we have also decided to start accepting the MBLEx in the near future. 

According to our state AMTA chapter president, during a separate portion of the meeting between the AMTA officers and the reps from NCBTMB last week, the NCBTMB  threatened at that meeting to appear on the legislature floor next week to protest against our practice act revisions, in the interest of forcing us to keep the NCE as our exam for state licensure.  The chapter president informed them that doing so could kill the whole bill that we have worked long and hard for–this has been several years in the making–and they weren’t swayed a bit, saying they would rather see the whole effort scrapped than to see their exam usurped by the MBLEx.  The clincher to this is that we have not at this time made a decision to get rid of the NCE; it could be an either/or choice of which exam to take. 

I personally find it very disturbing that the NCBTMB feels that they have the right to interfere with our state governance.  Our North Carolina Board joined the FSMTB because we feel it is a worthy organization.  I just looked on the FSMTB website and 19 states are currently listed as members.  I want someone to explain to me how it can possibly be a bad thing for state massage therapy boards to come together in the spirit of collaboration, because I don’t get it, and I certainly don’t get what the NCBTMB hopes to gain by threatening actions such as this. 

On another note in the same vein, in July there is a meeting in Milwaukee convening for the initiative of composing and defining a recognized Body of Knowledge (BOK) for the massage therapy profession.  This will be the work of the AMTA, the FSMTB, and the NCBTMB.  Considering the tensions between the FSMTB and the NCBTMB, I hope they’re able to work well together, because so far that has not been the case, though not for lack of effort on the part of the FSMTB.  The NCBTMB sees their monopoly (and no doubt a lot of income) going down the drain as more and more states accept the MBLEx; hence their threatening to make the effort to block our practice act from passing.  That’s just plain over the line of acceptable professional behavior.  This is like telling the public they can buy groceries, but they’re only allowed to buy them at Whole Foods–dictating what people must do.  Last time I looked, we were still a democracy, not a dictatorship. 

ABMP, the professional organization with the largest membership, claims that they initially weren’t even invited to attend the BOK meeting.  I’m a card-carrying member of AMTA, but I don’t see how excluding ABMP serves any common purpose for the good of the profession.  As already reported by Karen Menehan, editor of this magazine, Les Sweeney, the president of ABMP stated “ABMP believes a more productive approach would be to establish an independent commission, populated by individuals broadly respected both for their knowledge and their integrity, leaving their institutional affiliations at the door and working toward a solution benefiting the entire profession.” Very well said, Mr. Sweeney, but if the recent actions of the NCBTMB are any kind of indicator, that will happen about the same time pigs fly.

I’m an approved provider of continuing education under the NCBTMB (at least I was before I wrote this blog), and nationally certified myself.  I’ve had a long, and many times less than satisfactory, relationship with them.  I’ve watched the leadership problems unfold; followed along with the accusations of former and present board members and lawsuits; I’ve experienced crappy service from them many times, then seen it improve; and I had very high hopes that this organization was finally getting it together and getting on the right track.  The actions of their leaders at our meeting last week have really made me stop and question if they’ve gone off the deep end altogether.  If anyone from the NCBTMB leadership cares to respond to this post and tell us exactly what your motivation was for making the threat to try to kill our practice act revisions, I’d be very interested to hear it.  I find it interesting that they only unloaded about this to the AMTA officers and didn’t announce it to the Board and the school owners. 

The FSMTB has not yet involved themselves in approving providers of continuing education, and have not announced any intention to do so.  Of course, the NCBTMB would probably sue them if they did.  After all, they’re in charge, aren’t they? No, wait a minute, they only think they’re in charge. 

If this move is meant to endear them to our Board members or the AMTA, or therapists anywhere, they are missing the mark. If they follow through with their threat to show up at the legislature next week and kill our bill, they are going to find out what a Southern redneck hissy fit looks like from quite a few corners. 

Laura Allen

Representatives of the NCBTMB attended my state (NC) massage board’s meeting yesterday; school owners and program directors were invited (and our meetings are open to the public), and it was very informative. 

In what I personally felt was a shocking move, the NCBTMB revealed that they are implementing a new test security measure in limiting the number of times a candidate who fails may retest.  Anyone who fails three times will be required to complete 100 additional hours of education.  Anyone who fails five times must complete 500 additional hours of education.

I have been teaching a preparatory class for passing the NCE for almost a decade.  I’ve taught it a number of times for my state chapter of AMTA, various massage schools, and offer it four times a year at my own facility.  The attendees who attend the class at my place are often people who have already tried and failed the test; sometimes once, sometimes as many as six or seven times.  A woman recently called me who has taken it 15 times and wanted to take it again.

Some of these students are competent and knowledgeable; they are just poor test takers suffering from test anxiety.  Some have quite frankly been ill-prepared by their school for test-taking.  I know of schools that don’t test at all except for a final exam at the end of their program.  I hope the directors of those schools reading this blog will wake up and smell the coffee. Your students not only need to know the information on the test; they just plain need to know how to take a test.  Still others are students who went into massage school with the mistaken idea it was all about rubbing people and didn’t realize the amount of hard science they were going to encounter.

I questioned the Board’ s representative about this new requirement.  They will not be dictating what subject areas the additional education should be in, although the score report from the exam showing what area(s) the deficiency was in will be “recommended.”

I also asked the question if there is any repurcussion for schools who have a consistently low percentage of students passing the exam.  The answer to that is “no.” The average number of first-time test-takers who pass the National Certification Exam is 70%.  A school that gets by with having a pass rate of 35% for three or four years in a row is obviously not doing their job to prepare students to succeed.  I personally think schools should be obligated to reveal their pass rate for the past three or four years in their catalog, on their websites and any other media they use to attract potential students. 

I’m not convinced that requiring further education to take the test is the answer, although I suppose it’s as good a solution as there is.  I certainly believe that education is never wasted.  I just wonder if a student who didn’t “get it” in 500 hours is going to get it in 100 more.  Or 500 more.  500 is the minimum standard for entry-level competency in the Board’s paradigm.  Many states require more.

I do see that this could spur a lot of massage schools to start offering 100-hour remedial programs–to teach students the things they should have learned the first time around.  Ultimately, the burden is on the candidate to study the items that are listed in the content areas of the exam as set forth in the Candidate’s Handbook, whether it was covered in their massage school or not. 

I also wonder if this is partially a tactic to differentiate (in a positive light, of course) the NCE from the MBLEx, which I believe about 17 or 18 states have adopted since its introduction last year.

This development will no doubt be received with mixed reviews.

 Peace & Prosperity,

Laura Allen

I like making money as well as the next person, but at the end of the day, the thrill of it all for me is when I know I’ve done some good work and helped someone to feel better.  Of course I want to think that’s the case every time I give a massage, but there have been a few that I’ll never forget.

One session that stands out in my mind was an 86 year-old woman who had a severe case of TMJD.  Her grandaughter had been in my office and heard me discussing TMJD with another client, and she told me she wanted to pay me to work on her grandmother. 

I felt bad when I met the grandmother.  This poor lady could barely open her mouth.  She told me that for most of the past decade she had eaten soup and soft foods that she could more or less suck in.  At the end of the session,  when I asked her to show me how far she could open her mouth, she opened wide and said, “I want to go get a hot dog!”  It sounds funny, but it was very touching.  She died not long after I worked on her, and I’m glad she got to enjoy a hot dog before she went. 

That kind of thing is a great reward to me.  I’d love to hear about those life-changing sessions that stand out in your mind.

Peace & Prosperity,

Laura Allen