Nurse Massage Therapists???

[VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN]

I have a dear nurse friend who is totally burned out with nursing. She is older, with health problems, and has been through three or four disastrous hospital "reorganizations" during her career. These reorganizations were brutal and disastrous to the nursing staff in each instance. Now my friend can hardly stand the thought of nursing in a hospital anymore. Healing is still her passion, and she has taken courses on massage therapy and practices informally in her home. Only trouble with this, the State of North Carolina now has a Board of Licensed Massage Therapists which has instigated stiff practice and licensing requirements for massage therapists since 1998. (Just another instance of us nurses losing parts of our profession... we have lost physical therapy to our domain, as well as health education, nutrition and diet therapy, social work, what will be next????) Anyway, she wants to become a licensed massage therapist in North Carolina. Does anyone know if one can "place out" by taking an examination for massage therapy and thus achieve licensure without having to go through all the arduous classes, etc (it is a two-year program--yikes!!!!). Any thoughts or info would be most appreciated :)

[NurseDennie, BSN, RN]

I hope it works out for your friend. I can't answer your question, but I thought I'd stick my oar in. I suspect that it would differ from school to school. I suppose if the tuition was paid, perhaps she could test out of the classes?

My sister is a licensed massage therapist, only in a different state.

My sister has had a relatively rough time with it. She's been working at a couple of spa/health clubs and has been treated to a lot of politics and back-stabbing there, as well. She hasn't had the money to open her own practice, which really is the way to make a decent living as a massage therapist. She has to share her fee with the spa she's working in.

It's another very physically demanding line of work. She does the deep-tissue therapeutic massage, and if your friend doesn't do that kind of work, it probably wouldn't be quite so tiring. Massage therapists don't (as far as I've seen) use gloves when doing massage, so that's something that might concern your friend, as well.

It does have the potential to be lucrative. The fee is usually around a dollar a minute even for a relaxation type of massage.

I hope it works out for your friend!

Love

Dennie