Taking Nursing Pre-reqs along with Massage Therapy Program?

[liz_h]

Hi! I'm taking pre-req classes for nursing currently, but now I have this awesome opportunity to go to a massage therapy school. Since I've wanted to do both, I thought I would take advantage of this opportunity and take the MT program sooner rather than later. It is a 5 month program that starts in March and ends in August. The first two months (March-April) technique is taught in classroom theory. The next two months (May-June) is clinical internship and the last two months (July-August) we'll be studying for the licensing exam in classroom theory. They cover 200 hrs of massage technique - clinical massage and spa therapies, 20 hrs of Health, Hygiene, CPR and First Aid, 125 hrs of Anatomy, Physiology and Kinesiology, 20 hours of Hydrotherapy, 45 hours of Business practices & Professional Ethics and the 120 hr Clinical Internship.

My question is, how likely is it that I would be able to squeeze in a pre-req class this Summer. I thought taking Anatomy at a community college would complement what I was learning in massage school, or should I wait until the Fall and take it right after the massage program? Any advice is appreciated!

[MTtoBSN]

Me personally, I would wait and take it in the fall after the program. I have been a MT for almost 7 years and just started nursing school, and from my experience, they are two very intense courses in different ways. In MT school, you will focus on the muscles and bones much more than in a regular anatomy class. In pre-nursing anatomy, you will need to know certain muscles origins, insertions, and actions, but in MT school you will need to know nearly all (because this will be your domain as a massage therapist). The skeletal system is roughly the same in both. In pre-nursing anatomy, you will focus a lot more on tissue types and identifying microscope slides (which you don't do in MT school) as well as covering more of the nervous system.

Personally, I think having been a massage therapist before going back to school to do nursing made the so-called "dreaded anatomy and physiology" A LOT easier to me. Then again, ever since the second day of MT school, I was fascinated by A&P. That's probably what made me want to jump into the medical field.

Anyways, you'll love MT school. Because you'll have to practice on each other, it can be stressful and the most relaxing, all at the same time. Good luck!

[MTtoBSN]

Sorry, I just realized how old this post was. I hope everything went well.

[Sam J.]

Because you'll have to practice on each other, it can be stressful and the most relaxing, all at the same time. Good luck!

In the nursing school I attended we had to give each other BED BATHS, while the instructors stood by with their clipboards (yes, male to male and female to female only). But that's eons ago, and I can't imagine that happens nowadays.