I posted this in the General Nursing section; decided to post here also. Here goes:
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