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Welcome to the Rubdown, a news update about massage therapy. I'm your host, kori Rivera, licensed massage therapist and correspondent. Every month, the Rub will bring you news from around the world of massage therapy. Today's Rubdown will include news from May 2024. First up, hewell News. The Hewell Service Department provided 960 massages in May to the DC, maryland, virginia area, bringing our total sessions for the year to 4,583. Hewell Executive Director, cal Cates, presented a keynote speech at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization virtual convention in April titled Snuggling Up to your Mortality for Clinical Effect. They also participated in a debate for the Academy of Professionalism in Healthcare with massage therapy researchers Dr Ann Blair-Kennedy from the University of South Carolina and Dr Nikki Monk of Indiana University. The title of the debate was Seeking a Disciplinary Home for Massage Therapy.
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Public Health, palliative Care, rehabilitation, heal Well Homecoming is September 20th through 21st. There are four classes available on Friday, the 20th two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Each class is worth four CEs for a possible total of eight credits. Last month I told you about the two classes available Friday morning one for pregnancy and one about lymphatics and today I'm going to tell you about the classes for Friday afternoon. The first class is the ethics of solidarity seeing yourself and others to provide the best possible care. Carrie Jordan, healwell's operations director and chief, whack-a-mole with Cal Cates, our executive director and chief of Worms, will present a course that will help you explore your own mind, especially those parts we all wish didn't exist the place where bias lives. You'll learn about the neurobiology behind implicit bias and why it's important to move from the idea of cultural competency to practicing cultural humility. Carrie and Cal will also help you understand specific issues about ethical caring for LGBTQIA plus community members. You'll engage with current events and participate in small group exercises and large group discussions.
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The second afternoon class is Integrating Fossil Research into Clinical Practice with Kathy Ryan. Kathy has attended the International Fossil Research Congress since it started in 2007. This class will talk about current fossil research, science and evidence informed clinical considerations. Kathy will help you understand how to take fascial research and apply it to your practice. You'll learn fascial's functional role, consequences of fascial injury or dysfunction and how our hands-on work works. Research serves its purpose best when it's put into action. So off the page and onto the table.
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Up next, state and national news Ohio has joined the Interstate Compact which would allow massage therapist licensing in one state to follow the therapist to other participating states. The compact needs seven states to join before it can begin to hammer out the rules. Nevada has also accepted the compact and New York, kentucky, nebraska and Alabama are considering it. Georgia was considering it but has run into some trouble. If you're a Georgia resident and you would like to support the compact, please check out the links in the show notes. Delaware has introduced a House bill that would increase massage therapy education requirements from 500 to 265. Tennessee has passed a bill increasing massage therapy education requirements from 500 to 650.
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Alabama has terminated the Alabama Board of Massage Therapy and its functions to create the new Alabama Massage Therapy Licensing Board, which will operate under the Board of Nursing. If you are a resident of Alabama, you do not need to renew early or request any license under the new board. The board has seven seats open to licensed massage therapists. The board must be completed by July 1st, so if you're interested in being a board member, you will need to email your resume and cover letter to the Alabama governor, lieutenant governor and house speaker. Check out the ABMP News website for more details.
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Our next segment is news from the Massage Therapy National Associations. Don't forget. The HealWell blog has a helpful glossary of terms, including the Alphabet Soup of Massage Associations. You can find the link to this guide in the show notes. Usolmt added a new board member, director of Education, christy Waltrip, from Louisiana. Usolmt is still searching for other board members and information and directions to apply can be found on their website. The Massage Therapy Foundation is accepting posters for the AMTA National Convention. Topics are original research, program evaluation and clinical case presentation. Deadline for submissions has been extended to July 1st at midnight Central Standard Time.
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The Coalition of National Massage Organizations is having a meeting June 10th through 11th in Dallas, texas. The coalition is made up of the seven largest national associations. Abmp and AMTA represent insurance-based membership organizations. Ncbtmb represents continuing education, fsmtb represents state boards and the national exam. Afmte represents educators, comta represents school accreditation and the Massage Therapy Foundation represents research. The coalition is most well known for organizing and funding the Entry-Level Analysis Project, or ELAP, which hired experts in massage therapy to establish a curriculum for entry-level massage education, and it is where the 625-hour program standard comes from. The last update from the Coalition is from December 2015 and can be read on COMTA's website. The last update from the coalition is from December 2015 and can be read on Compta's website. The coalition discussed the FSMTB Model Practice Act, continuing education oversight, accreditation and recognition in the massage school landscape, the Polaris Project about human trafficking, and identification of topics and issues for ongoing discussion. Further topics agreed upon were continuing education oversight, human trafficking and the Teacher Standards Project.
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I wrote to all of the organizations about this year's meeting, asking to attend as a journalist and, if I cannot attend, to request the coalition create a report for this meeting. As of this episode, I have received three replies one from Dawn Hogue from Compta. She says she will not be able to attend because this meeting is a reschedule from the original, but Compta will be sending Dale Healy, their commission chair. My second response was from Kim Alexander, president of AFMTE, stating that past president Sherry Aldrich and secretary Vicki Winston will be attending. She says the AFMTE is particularly interested in discussing gainful employment. The last reply was from Adrian Asta, president of the Massage Therapy Foundation, stating that the Massage Therapy Foundation will not be attending because quote since the meeting is in person, with no hybrid option, it would be fiscally irresponsible for us to attend. Unquote. She states the Massage Therapy Foundation is also looking forward to hearing what comes out of the meeting.
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I have a very exciting announcement you can now text the show by clicking the link in the show notes and for each news update I will be asking a question and reading responses the following month. This month's question is what topics would you want the Coalition of National Massage Organizations to discuss? And last, here are massage therapy events coming up. First, live events. If you want to catch a HealWell live class, we have oncology classes August 23rd through 25th in Harrisburg, pennsylvania, and October 23rd through 25th in Keene, new Hampshire. Healwell's hospital-based massage therapy stewardship this year is November 5th through 8th in Washington DC and we have two SCAR classes left with Kathy Ryan, washington DC. And we have two SCAR classes left with Kathy Ryan. They are September 21st and 22nd in Fairfax, virginia, and October 26th through 27th in Santa Monica, california. If you attend the September 21st through 22nd class in Fairfax Virginia, you will be excellently situated to attend Heal Well Homecoming as well.
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Other live conferences include the AFMTE Educational Conference July 11th through 13th in Kansas City, missouri. Afmte says that you should attend if you are a massage therapy continuing education provider, massage therapy school instructor, a school owner or administrator and anyone else interested in the future of massage therapy education. The AMTA National Convention is September 12-14 in Tampa. The FSMTB Annual Meeting is October 3-5 in Washington DC. The Black Massage Therapist Conference is October 8th through 9th in Charlotte, north Carolina. Presale tickets are available until June 15th, so you should get them while they're hot.
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The event organizer, devana Willis of 419 Education, will be speaking and holding classes at several national locations throughout the summer. You can check out the full schedule on their website link in the show notes. And Laura Mermosley, professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Foundation Chair in Physiotherapy at the University of South Australia, who is a physiotherapist, a neuroscientist, a pain scientist and a science educator, will be doing a rare tour of North America in September and October. He'll be visiting Vancouver, san Francisco and New York City. You can check out his TED Talk about pain in the link in the show notes.
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For virtual events, afmte will be having a second virtual open discussion about gainful employment on June 24th at 5.30 pm Eastern Standard Time. The HealWell community will have a book club on June 27th. We are reading Care the Highest State of Capitalism. Book clubs happen really really rarely in the community, so I encourage you to join us at communityhealwellorg If you have any national or state level news about massage therapy that you would like to share? Please send an email with your news and a link to your source at podcasthealwellorg, or click the link in the show notes to send us a text. You can subscribe to our Patreon for early episodes and full interviews and you can always join us in the HealWell Online community. And one more time this month's question that you can text to the show using the link in the show notes what topics would you want the Coalition of National Massage Organizations to discuss? This has been your May News Rubdown and thank you for listening.
