Sunset CAMTC: Call to Immediate Action!

According to the California Senate Business and Professions Committee website, a Senate vote on AB1504 in regards to CAMTC is scheduled for June 30, 2025, at 10:00 AM, located at 1021 O Street, Room 2100.

Massage therapists, school owners, employers, and consumers of massage: please attend and encourage all those who support sunsetting CAMTC and establishing a state licensing board to attend and speak in support for up to 2 minutes. Advocacy letters in favor of creating a state licensing board can also be sent to legislative staff and to the Business and Professions Committee. (should be sent prior to 6/30/25). A template courtesy of ABMP can be downloaded here. They can email their support to sunset CAMTC to:

Link to AMTA licensing support of state license is here: https://ca.wp.amtamassage.org/state-legislation/

Link to ABMP licensing support is here: https://www.abmp.com/updates/legislative-updates/california/let-sun-set-camtc-certification

There are numerous reasons for sunsetting CAMTC and getting a real licensing board, the same as exists in 46 states, Washington DC, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Licensed massage therapists are not out there in left field with a “certification.”

It’s interesting to note that California has a population of over 39 million people, and Governor Gavin Newsom’s salary is $279,476.00. Meanwhile, CAMTC has less than 60,000 certified massage therapists, and the CEO of that organization makes more than twice the amount of salary that the governor does. No wonder they don’t want the sun to go down on this organization. It’s a cash cow.

Yet another reason to sunset CAMTC is the unethical and unlawful behavior they have exhibited in the matter of A2Z Healthnet Massage Schools. The Sacramento Superior Court hearing to hold CAMTC in contempt of court is scheduled now for June 24, 2025. A2Z graduates (the number is now close to 300) remain in a state of limbo—some for over two years—with no explanation or solution provided by CAMTC. Despite two court injunctions ordering CAMTC to certify A2Z graduates, the organization refuses to comply. This organization apparently thinks it is above the law. The graduates have shown up to board meetings, sent emails, called, but they are being ignored. The owners have written letters requesting to speak at board meetings that received no response linked here, and specifically wrote a letter to Joe Bob Smith, Director of Education Standard Division,  to which they have also had no response, linked here.

We call on legislators to protect the due process rights of individuals. They have the constitutional right to work. Furthermore, these students have paid their $300 fee to CAMTC, and they have nothing to show for it. Legislators must hold CAMTC accountable. Whatever grievance CAMTC may have with the school should not affect the applicants. These students enrolled and attended A2Z while it was fully approved, and there was never any lapse in its approval.

For more background on the sunset, you can read my previous blogs:

Let the Sun Set on CAMTC

Let the Sun Set on CAMTC Part II

Let the Sun Set on CAMTC Part III

I urge every massage therapist in California to email their legislators. Flood their email urging the sunset of CAMTC and the creation of a true licensing board in California.  Do it before June 30.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Financial Health of Massage Organizations: AMTA

Over the next few blogs, I will be posting about the financial health of massage therapy organizations that are non-profit. First up is AMTA. As non-profits are on a different schedule than taxpayers, 2023 is the last year that is currently available. Their Form 990 is labeled as such, although technically their tax year for this filing is for the time period beginning 03/01/2023 and ending 02/29/2024.  Information comes from www.guidestar.org.

AMTA is in sound financial health. Their total revenue for this filing is $22,691,933, a gain of over $1.7M from the previous year. Over $18,000,000 of that came from member dues. Their total expenses for the year were 22,523,607.

They awarded $598,997 in grants (AMTA supports the Massage Therapy Foundation as well as the Commission on Massage Therapy Accreditation and also gives scholarships).

At the time of this filing, Bill Brown was still the executive director. He received just under $450,000 in salary and other compensation. Lisa Stegink, CEO and general counsel received over $363,000 in salary and other compensation, and Jeffrey Flom, CEO, received over $325,000 in salary and other compensation. Six other department directors received a minimum of $150,000 up to $191,000 in salary and other compensation.

AMTA spent over $969,000 on lobbying for the good of the massage therapy profession.

AMTA has $46,741,102 in assets, minus $17,004,290 in liabilities, leaving them with $29,736,812 in net assets and fund balances.

Although the exact number is not given, AMTA’s website says they have over 100,000 members. AMTA was founded in 1943. In other words, they have managed their finances well, and they’re not going out of business.

 

A Podcast about CAMTC from Healwell.org

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve always admired the folks at Healwell.org.

If you don’t know what Healwell is and what they do, please visit their website.  Healwell weighed in on the CAMTC Sunset this week. They have a regular podcast, called The Rub: a Healwell podcast about massage therapy. This episode is  Rubdown News Alert: California State Licensing

Please give it a listen and read the notes; they have some good resources.

Healwell also has a very informative blog covering different topics related to massage and other health-related topics. Again, please visit their website and see all the good work they do, not limited to but including working with cancer patients, providing education, conducting research, and doing hospital-based as well as outpatient care. Healwell is a non-profit organization. Their finances are transparent and their 990 filings and annual reports are linked directly on their website. Consider making a donation. 

Let the Sun Set on CAMTC Part III

The pathetic saga of CAMTC continues. The Sunset hearing is scheduled for April 29. ABMP and AMTA are both in favor of sunsetting this organization and are working towards that end through their government relations people. What you can do, as a massage therapist, is send a letter to your representative ahead of the April 29 deadline. If you don’t know who your legislators are, you can find that out here. A letter template can be accessed here. You can also ask your clients to support this and encourage them to contact legislators as well.

California massage therapists deserve true licensing instead of this voluntary certification, which was never meant to be the final outcome from the beginning. It was seen as a stopgap measure until true licensing could be achieved. One wonders why the CAMTC is so against licensing. It may be they are happy with the money their executives are hauling in. You can see their 990 filing from 2023 here. 

Regardless of the outcome of that, one can only hope that on June 2, justice will be served when the contempt of court hearing against CAMTC happens.  It is unfortunate that the contempt of court hearing is not taking place before the sunset hearing.

There are now approximately 300 graduates from A2Z Health Massage School who have their certifications in limbo. They’ve completed school, paid their money to CAMTC, and are being denied certification by CAMTC. There are two court orders telling them to certify the graduates, the last one issued by the Superior Court, but they have not been complied with. The hearing on June 2 requires that the CAMTC explain why they are violating the court orders. It will be especially interesting since during the discovery process, the owners of A2Z found that a CAMTC employee who visited the school multiple times during surprise visits gave them good reviews.

Licensing boards exist for public protection. They exist to license those who meet the qualifications, to approve education, to investigate complaints, to work against human trafficking and the association of sex in the massage profession, and to give due process to consumers and to licensees. CAMTC has failed the due process part miserably. As I quoted in my last post, the order issued by the Superior Court states:

(1) By no later than April 4, 2025, the Council shall issue provisional certifications to each Petitioner. The provisional certifications shall remain effective until the final disposition of this action, subject to the Massage Therapy Act’s provisions for renewal (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4605) and discipline (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 4609-4611).
(2) The Council is enjoined from withholding certification from any applicant based upon the Council’s investigation of and/or approval revocation proceedings against A2Z.
(3) The Council is enjoined from requiring any applicant to submit to any
investigatory process as a condition of certification, including interviews,
hearings, or submission of additional information, except for the sole purpose of determining whether the applicant has received the required education set forth in Business & Professions Code, § 4604, subd. (a)(2).)
IT IS SO ORDERED.

Graduates of this school who were called in for interviews stated that they were asked such questions as “Where is the school’s bathroom located?” and “What is beriberi?” Beriberi is a rather obscure disease caused by a deficiency in thiamine, that is most prevalent in indigenous populations in the Amazon, in infants in refugee camps, for example, and other places lacking adequate nutrition.¹ It is a rare occurrence in the US. As the author of a textbook on passing licensing exams that is in its 5th edition, I have never mentioned it in the pathology section.  I’d be surprised if it’s a question on the MBLEx, other state exams, or the Board Certification Exam. If knowledge of beriberi is the benchmark for the safe and effective practice of massage therapy, a lot of us are probably in trouble. 

Please act on this immediately by writing your legislators. April 29 is looming, and if this doesn’t happen now, there will not be another opportunity for four more years. It’s time to support real licensing in California.

  1. Geoffrey A. Preidis, 81 – Nutrition-Associated Disease, Editor(s): Jeremy Farrar, Patricia Garcia, Peter Hotez, Thomas Junghanss, Gagandeep Kang, David Lalloo, Nicholas White. Manson’s Tropical Diseases (Twenty-Fourth Edition),Elsevier, 2024, Pages 1161-1177. ISBN 9780702079597,Geoffrey A. Preidis,
    81 – Nutrition-Associated Disease,
    Editor(s): Jeremy Farrar, Patricia Garcia, Peter Hotez, Thomas Junghanss, Gagandeep Kang, David Lalloo, Nicholas White,
    Manson’s Tropical Diseases (Twenty-Fourth Edition),
    Elsevier, 2024, Pages 1161-1177,
    ISBN 9780702079597,
    https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-7020-7959-7.00081-6.

Let the Sun Set on CAMTC Part II

 

My recent blog about CAMTC caused quite a stir. I got dozens of emails from people who have been affected by their actions and  letters of thanks from two former national presidents of AMTA. I also received an email from Joe Bob Smith, CAMTC Director of Educational Standards Division, telling me my BS meter looks like it’s a little rusty. I had given him a heads up on the forthcoming blog and CAMTC could have given their side, but chose not do so.

Today is April 4, the deadline imposed by the California Superior Court to grant petitioners who graduated from A2Z Health Massage School a provisional certification. Although the case was filed by 6 specific petitioners, the ruling from the Superior Court, dated 03/13/2025, states the following:

Petitioners’ motion for a preliminary injunction is granted as follows:
(1) By no later than April 4, 2025, the Council shall issue provisional certifications to each Petitioner. The provisional certifications shall remain effective until the final disposition of this action, subject to the Massage Therapy Act’s provisions for renewal (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4605) and discipline (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 4609-4611).
(2) The Council is enjoined from withholding certification from any applicant based upon the Council’s investigation of and/or approval revocation proceedings against A2Z.
(3) The Council is enjoined from requiring any applicant to submit to any
investigatory process as a condition of certification, including interviews,
hearings, or submission of additional information, except for the sole purpose of determining whether the applicant has received the required education set forth in Business & Professions Code, § 4604, subd. (a)(2).)
IT IS SO ORDERED.

Today, I was contacted by one of the graduates who has been waiting more than a year to receive the certification for which they meet all the qualifications, whose initial contact with me was the reason I wrote the first blog. They are one of 250 graduates of A2Z whose certifications have unlawfully and unethically been held up by CAMTC. The graduate emailed CAMTC today inquiring about the certificate and including the court order, and CAMTC’s response was “Due to ongoing litigation your application has not been processed.” Bear in mind, these 250 people have all paid the required $300 fee to apply for certification, as well as paid for fingerprints/background check, and a passport photo, as well as submitting all the required paperwork.

$300 may not seem like a lot of money, but when it’s been held up for over a year and you haven’t received anything in return for it except excuses, most people would be upset over it. These graduates are particularly upset over it, because even though certification in California is completely voluntary–in theory–there are many places that will not hire a therapist without the certification, regardless of how much education they have.

CAMTC has made it a point to state how financially solvent they are. Since non-profits are on a different filing schedule than the rest of us, the latest 990 filing that is available from them on Guidestar is for 2022. Edit: it was brought to my attention that another website, ProPublica, has the CAMTC 2023 filing available. You will have to create a free account to access it. It’s quite enlightening. Since this quasi-board is not like other state regulatory agencies, they operate quite a bit differently. You will not find another massage board anywhere in the United States where there is a CEO making over half a million dollars a year. And yet, one of the arguments they use to maintain their status quo is that actual licensing will cost massage therapists a whole lot more than $300. I call BS, regardless of what anyone thinks of my BS meter.

Other professions in California have real licensing boards. Massage therapists deserve the same. 46 states, Washington DC, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico have real licensing boards. They are not out there in left field with a “certification.”

I was on a call last night with the California Massage Schools Association with about 60 others, who are overwhelmingly supporting licensing. The keynote speaker was Laura Puryear, Government Relations representative from ABMP. She stated that ABMP and AMTA are both working towards real licensing for California. It is past time for that to happen. Puryear provided a letter template that interested parties may use to contact their legislators in California. You can download it here. 

I encourage all massage therapists, those who are currently in school seeking a career in massage therapy, and school owners to send this letter. If you don’t know who your representative is, you can find that out here. 

Furthermore, ask your massage clients to write in, too, supporting licensure for massage therapists. Time is of the essence as the next hearing on this issue happens April 29.

Let the Sun Set on CAMTC

 

Those who formerly followed my blog focusing on the politics of massage know that I gave it up a long time ago. But in this case, I feel compelled to come out of blogging retirement. Hang on; this will be lengthy.

For the uninformed, up until 2008, massage in California was subject to neither licensing or certification. It was regulated by individual towns and cities, and was most often categorized as adult entertainment. A legitimate therapist who was practicing years ago told me she was required to take a test for STDs before getting a city license.

In 2008, a bill creating the CAMTC (California Massage Therapy Council) as a non-governmental, non-profit agency to offer voluntary certification for massage therapists was passed, and in 2009, they began issuing certifications. Just a few years later, city officials managed to get a change made, stating that brothels masquerading as massage businesses had proliferated since the initial bill passed. The CA Chapter of AMTA has a history of the process available for public view.

Newer legislation clarifies what cities and towns can and cannot do to interfere with health professionals, such as massage therapists, doing their job. And yet, that is exactly what CAMTC is currently doing.

On January 14, 2025, I was contacted by a graduate of A2Z Health Massage School, located in Reseda, California.  The graduate who contacted me had graduated from a 250-hour program at A2Z in Thousand Oaks in 2015, followed by obtaining another 50 hours of additional education in Deep Tissue Massage in 2016, and returned to the Reseda location for a 528-hour diploma in 2024. They tracked me down through my old blog and we had a phone call. In the meantime, they emailed me their transcripts and communications with CAMTC. The crux of the communications was that their application was denied; not because of lack of education, but because A2Z was under investigation. When I looked up the school on the CAMTC website before my call with the graduate, they were listed as an approved school. They are still listed as an approved school, but there is now a statement there that says, “As of 1/23/2025, CAMTC has placed A2Z Health.net, Inc., under investigation.” That may be so, but this graduate applied for their license over a year ago.

According to the owners of A2Z, there are approximately 250 graduates of their school who have applied to CAMTC for certification who have not received it. They are being held in limbo.

CAMTC has, in my opinion, come to the end of their usefulness. Judging by the 60+ school owners, educators, and therapists in attendance at a ZOOM meeting of CAMSA (California Massage Schools Association) that I also attended this past Wednesday, as well as last month’s meeting, the majority of are in agreement that California needs full-on licensing the same as the other regulated states.

Besides California, there are now only a few states without regulation: Minnesota, Kansas, and Wyoming; Vermont does not require a license, but requires registration. What that means is that people practicing massage in unregulated states do not have to have any training in massage therapy, nor pass any sort of exam to prove competency. California’s certification is voluntary, and while they have the requirement of 500 hours of education to be certified, they do not require anyone to pass an exam. And it is still perfectly fine to hold yourself out as a massage therapist in CA without any training or knowledge at all; you just can’t claim to be certified by CAMTC.

I ended up contacting the school owners, Dr. Ben Drillings and Lilah Drillings for some clarification. Dr. Ben has been a chiropractor since 1991 ; he and Lilah founded A2Z school in 1997. Dr. Drillings is a former Board member of CAMTC, and is the President of the California Massage Schools Association. A2Z was approved by the CAMTC in 2015, when they initially started approving schools. CAMTC’s website states: Pursuant to CAMTC’s Policies and Procedures for Approval of Schools, as of July 1, 2016, CAMTC generally only accepts education from California schools specifically approved by CAMTC. Previously, CAMTC did not approve schools. Rather, it accepted education from California schools approved by the California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) or other entities listed in California Business and Professions Code section 4601(a), unless the school was otherwise un-approved by CAMTC.

A2Z has been approved by the BPPE since their inception in 1998. BPPE is a division of California Department of Consumer Affairs to provide oversight of private postsecondary educational institutions operating in California. The Drillings stated to me that their school (and all others that are approved by the Bureau) gets inspected annually by the Bureau, and that if any deficiencies are found, the school is notified in writing and is given 30 days to correct any deficiencies. And herein starts the problem.

On January 4, 2023, A2Z received a corrective letter from Joe Bob Smith, the Director of Educational Standards Division at California Massage Therapy Council, who had visited the school 7 months prior. He stated that the ESL students did not understand the material.  Another employee in the Education Standards Division, Jeff Simancek, also visited; during 2022, A2Z received a total of 7 unannounced visits from CAMTC, including two in one day. From May 20, 2022 to December 8, 2022, there was an unprecedented number of unannounced visits to A2Z’s Reseda and Santa Monica locations. What Mr. Simancek observed and reported was that A2Z students appeared to understand the material that was being taught in English and participated in English.

Following the May 20, 2022 visit, Mr. Simancek wrote “Students were asking questions and participating in the lecture.” Following the June 9, 2022 visit, Mr. Simancek wrote that “class was in English.” “Students were asking questions.” “Teacher was knowledgeable”. Following the August 3, 2022 visit, Jeff Simancek wrote that the students were very interactive with students commenting and answering questions, and that the class was student driven. In the December 8, 2022 visit, Simancek stated that many students speak English very well and that the lectures are in English. In an email written by  Simancek to Joe Bob Smith dated December 9, 2022, Simancek reported that there were “no red flags. Most students spoke and responded to in English.” It should be noted that the Drillings, owners of the school, did not receive these good reports until they were provided during the discovery process of the lawsuit.

Neither students nor teachers were interviewed at the school. They were “observed.” Joe Bob Smith informed the school that CAMTC wanted a list of every ESL student who had graduated from 2020 forward. When the school responded they did not keep a separate list of ESL students because that would be discriminatory, CAMTC said they intended to interview every student. Once the interviews, which were conducted by Shanna Price, Hearing Officer of CAMTC, started, according to the Drillings, every student who was ESL (most were Asian) failed the interview. However, when students asked why they failed, they were not given a response.  When the school questioned the interview, asking about a rubric, how many questions a student needed to answer correctly to pass, etc., the response from Price was “It is based on my experience.” American students who were interviewed were asked “how they felt” about ESL students. 18% of  California’s population is Asian. 71% of Asians in California are proficient in English.

It should be noted that once the student failed the interview, they were notified they could have a hearing to appeal, 5-6 months in the future, and that there would be a fee of $180 for a written hearing, or $270 for a verbal hearing. In July 2024, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) filed a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court against the California Massage Therapy Council (CAMTC) for discriminating against students of Asian descent, on behalf of 6 Chinese and Thai massage therapy students. A2Z secured a court ruling  on October 10, 2024, where CAMTC was ordered to stop its investigation and issue certifications to A2Z grads…but they did not do so, apparently working on the assumption that they are above the law.

The graduate who contacted me, who is incidentally non-Asian, born in America, and English-speaking, along with the other graduates who have been waiting, received an email from A2Z last week that included a Superior Court ruling that was issued on March 13 ordering the CAMTC to issue provisional certificates no later than April 4. The pertinent part of the order is:

Petitioners’ motion for a preliminary injunction is granted as follows:

(1) By no later than April 4, 2025, the Council shall issue provisional certifications to each Petitioner. The provisional certifications shall remain effective until the final disposition of this action, subject to the Massage Therapy Act’s provisions for renewal (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4605) and discipline (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 4609-
4611).
(2) The Council is enjoined from withholding certification from any applicant based upon the Council’s investigation of and/or approval revocation proceedings against A2Z.
(3) The Council is enjoined from requiring any applicant to submit to any
investigatory process as a condition of certification, including interviews,
hearings, or submission of additional information, except for the sole purpose of determining whether the applicant has received the required education set forth in Business & Professions Code, § 4604, subd. (a)(2).)
IT IS SO ORDERED.

I had first approached Joe Bob Smith, Director of Educational Standards Division at California Massage Therapy Council, a few weeks ago to tell him I was coming out of retirement to blog about this issue, and that I would give CAMTC a chance to comment. He said they could not comment because it was currently in litigation. I contacted him again last week to let him know I had a copy of the Superior Court order telling them to issue the certifications, and asked him if they were going to comply with it. He stated he was away from the office but that he would pass it on. I have not heard anything from them. The graduate who initially contacted me emailed CAMTC on March 17, asking to have their certification in accordance with the court order, and received the following reply:

Thank you for your inquiry.  Due to ongoing litigation between A2Z and CAMTC, we are unable to discuss the details of this ongoing matter or respond more substantially at this time.  Please feel free to contact us in the future and we will plan to let you know when we can share additional information.

Tomorrow, March 24, is the Sunset hearing for CAMTC. AMTA is backing the sunset of this organization in favor of a real licensing board. So is ABMP.  If you agree that it’s time for California to retire this power-trip organization in favor of an actual licensing board, please contact Robert.Sumner@asm.ca.gov  with Sunset Hearing – CAMTC or California Massage Therapy Council in the subject line. You can also view the committee members and their contact info at

https://abp.assembly.ca.gov/members/committee-staff

https://sbp.senate.ca.gov/committeehome

Time is of the essence so please contact them immediately. If anyone would like a sample letter to send them, you can get in touch with me at educatedheart@gmail.com and I will send you one.

 

 

Let’s Stay Home

 

I’m 64 on my way to 65. Looking forward to Medicare and Social Security. I’m not planning to retire yet, but I’m slowly easing towards it. I’m in relatively good health. I am still a workaholic and always have projects going on, but I’ve substantially shifted gears. I work whatever hours I wish, usually early in the morning or late at night. I do the same with writing and recording class videos. Most of my deadlines these days are self-imposed. 

I’ve worked remotely from home since 2015. Between 2015-2020, I also continued to maintain a small base of massage clients, which I let go when COVID started. Although I still have my massage license and plan to keep it for a few more years, I don’t intend to ever go back to regular practice. I have one client that I’ve seen almost daily for close to a year; she’s 39 and in a wheelchair due to an aneurysm and two strokes. She lives close by so I drop in most days for 20-30 minutes and do range of motion exercises with her and a little bit of “feel-good” massage. It feeds my soul and hopefully does some good for her. I get occasional messages from people on social media wanting to book massage with me, and so far, I’ve declined to take on any further clients. I don’t really foresee that changing.

I have a sign on my front porch that says, “Let’s Stay Home.” That’s my attitude these days. I have accepted a teaching gig at the Texas AMTA meeting in April, also one at NC AMTA in April, and I will of course be at the World Massage Festival as usual this year and hopefully for as long as it lasts. I will probably go down to FSMTA, also in July, since my brothers live nearby and I usually combine that with a visit to them.  I am volunteering with FSMTB this year and will probably have to make a trip or two for them, but I plan to never have another schedule that requires frequent trips away from home…because I want to be at home.

For years, I was out playing music on weekends, and that’s over, too. My picking and grinning takes place on the porch, or at an occasional jam session on the mountaintop with my friends in good weather. I’m past the point of waiting until 9pm to start playing and not crawling home until the wee hours of the morning. Neither my husband nor I  like to drive at night, and we don’t drink and drive, so we’ve turned into two old coots who don’t get out much. We’ve been to a few concerts in the past couple of years, but Robert Plant, Jason Isbell, or Billy Strings is going to have to appear in my back yard for me to consider going to another one. Not only has the price of tickets become ridiculous, but I also don’t like paying $12 for a beer just because I’m a captive audience. It’s insane. I’ll stay home and watch YouTube and spend $12 for a 6-pack of Guinness.

I haven’t turned into a hermit. I haven’t developed agoraphobia. I still enjoy meeting up with old friends and making new ones at conventions and teaching and attending CE classes. But my priorities have changed. When I was 24, I would have thought the world was coming to an end if I wasn’t out having a wild time on the weekends. At 64, I appreciate the heck out of being home and having a slow dance on the porch with my husband, and sipping on some cherry bounce. It’s a good life. So yeah, let’s stay home.

 

On the Road Again

1950 Ford CoupeThis fine-looking 1950 Ford Coupe belongs to my husband, James. It was his father’s. He and his brother restored it to the perfect specimen that it is now. It’s beautiful. We just put insurance and tag on it a few days ago. We built a new garage for it, too.

Two years ago, when the world turned upside down with COVID, all the massage conventions and live classes were canceled. It seems that COVID is going to stay with us for a while longer–maybe forever–but life goes on.  I’m vaxxed and boosted. That’s not a guarantee of staying free of COVID, but it makes me feel somewhat better about the risk of getting a severe case.

I ventured out to teach my first live class since 2020 a couple of months ago for the South Carolina Chapter of AMTA. Next week, I’m heading to the World Massage Festival in Cherokee, NC, to teach four classes, hang around the CryoDerm booth when I can, and reconnect with my tribe. It’s good to be on the road again, seeing massage therapists from near and far.

On the other hand, these two years of staying home have been a wonderful blessing. I’m fortunate that I have been working at home since 2015, when I accepted a job with Soothing Touch. They are located in New Mexico, but allowed me to work remotely. I left there after three years and went to work for CryoDerm. CryoDerm is located in Florida, and they also allow me to work from home.

James and I both stay busy. We both always have some kind of project to work on. We do projects together, too, usually involving woodworking. I’m handy with a Dremel and using the torch to burn wood. My husband is the gardener in our family.  Sometimes he trusts me to do the watering; that’s brave on his part, since I could kill a silk flower!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It will be good to see the family of hands again (that’s what I’ve always called the Festival). We’ve got another trip planned to meet up with friends in Tennessee in September. Sometime this winter, we’ll head down to see my family in Florida. And next year, hopefully we can return to Ireland. I’ve visited Ireland  every year for years, until COVID came along. James made his first trip with me in 2019, and we had no idea we wouldn’t be able to go in 2020, or 2021, or this year. While the numbers have gone down in my home state of North Carolina, they’re rising again in Ireland, so we’ll wait another year and see what happens.

No one knows what the future may hold. We will take it in stride, whatever it is. We’ll enjoy sitting on the porch with our dogs, watching the garden grow, and playing music together in the evenings.  And we’ll enjoy our rides through the countryside (the kind with no real destination in mind) in the Ford.

I wish everyone health and happiness. May your blessings be many and your troubles be few.

 

 

 

 

 

A Rude Awakening: Unintended Plagiarism

Writing has been a big part of my life since I was in middle school, when I helped put the school annual together, and wrote in it that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I started college right after high school in the 70s, and wrote political articles for The Patriot, our school newspaper. A few years later, when I was working as a chef at a mountain resort, I started writing a regular column for their monthly newspaper. My first magazine article was published in a regional magazine, Spirit of the Smokies, over 20 years ago. I’ve written numerous articles published in nearly every massage publication, and over 300 blogs.

In 2003, when I was working at the massage school I attended, I wrote my first book. Students were complaining about the prep guides that were out at the time to help study for the National Certification Exam from the NCBTMB, which was the licensing exam at the time in most regulated states. I cheekily thought I could do a better job, so I wrote a guide. I had copies of it wire-o bound and printed at a local print shop, and the owner of the school sold it in the bookstore. It never occurred to me to sell it to anyone except the students at the school. I still have one copy of that original in my possession, and it’s pitiful…it wasn’t professionally edited, it had no pictures, no index, and all around, it was just awful.

In spite of that, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins published the book. The owner of the massage school had received a letter from them asking if she would be interested in reviewing books from them, and she tossed it to me and said “Why don’t you do this, you’ll be good at it!” So I filled out an application, which involved listing anything you had published. I listed my book. A few weeks later, they contacted me and asked me to send them a copy…and the rest is history. They published the first edition in 2005, and went on to publish three editions of the book, as well as four other books I authored. They also threw me plenty of work as a reviewer, and writing curriculum for massage schools and ancillaries for other textbooks.  A few years ago, they decided to get out of the massage part of the healthcare publishing business, and returned my copyrights to me. I have since self-published my books. I haven’t even shopped them to other publishers. I have enjoyed being responsible for them from start to finish.

One of the high points of my career was Nina McIntosh, the author of The Educated Heart, personally asking me to author the future editions of her ethics book. She had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and she didn’t want the book to die when she did. She had Lippincott sign a contract to that effect. When Lippincott dropped the massage line, and gave the copyright to Nina’s heirs, her heirs signed that over to me. I have authored the 4th and 5th editions and have been proud to carry on her work. I also took over writing her regular column, Heart of Bodywork, in ABMP’s magazine, Massage & Bodywork. It has been a great privilege, and I was flattered to be asked.

I was asked to revise Clay & Pounds Basic Clinical Massage Therapy: Integrating Anatomy & Treatment, after the original author died. It was one of LWW’s best-selling books, and during the revision, I found (and corrected) 75 anatomy mistakes in it. I’ve always wondered how many students learned the wrong thing from the original. David Pounds, the illustrator on the book, is brilliant, and won an award for the book.

Another high point of my career was winning a case study contest from the Massage Therapy Foundation, which resulted in being published in the International Journal of Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork, a peer-reviewed publication. My study is indexed on PubMed. I had to cut the word count of the study in half for publication, and it was picked apart by their editors and by my own advisors before being published…in fact, I asked them to pick it apart before I ever submitted it. That was my first, and only, foray into writing for a peer-reviewed journal. I usually stick to writing about ethics and business.

I’ve written other self-published books on various topics, and edited and ghost-written books for other people who had a good story to tell, but weren’t writers. It’s been a rewarding part of my life. I haven’t gotten rich from it, but I’ve had a lot of personal satisfaction of being able to do what I enjoy doing. I usually have one or two people waiting in the wings for my services on that front.

Last weekend, that came crashing down around my head.  I submitted an article to a science-based magazine that I have written a couple of articles for in the past, and a couple of days later, received an email from the owner telling me they would not publish my article or any future work of mine because I was guilty of plagiarism. I almost choked. This magazine expects references on all articles, linked within the article, and I had done that. I responded to him that I had never intentionally plagiarized anything in my life, and that I thought I had provided the source links throughout the article.  He acknowledged that I had provided the links to the original work (all were research studies), but told me I had too many words copied verbatim that should have been in my own words. Strangely, a plagiarism checker, which I have never used before, but have since investigated, will computer-generate those alternative words for you, when it catches something that is plagiarized. I have never used a plagiarism checker, but it’s apparent that I need to start. It does seem kind of ironic that something that should be changed into your own words doesn’t actually have to be in your own words; the computer will change them for you.

This whole episode made me feel physically ill. I truly cannot describe how I felt. I was filled with embarrassment and shame. I cried in front of my husband, and threw up after I got the message, and have had a serious flareup of my IBS in the few days since.

I thought of the many times I have contacted other teachers to ask if I could use something they’ve written, or gotten quotes from to include in something I was writing. I’ve asked massage therapists to contribute to things I was writing, and asked some of the most well-known and illustrious teachers in massage if I could use something they’ve written, or a picture they’ve taken, and I have never been refused. They have all been very gracious about it. One teacher, who didn’t know me at all, when I contacted to ask if I could include something he had written in a class I was teaching, laughed and said, “Thanks for asking, most people just steal it!”

I thought of a time when people on FB kept sending me links to material from one of my own books that was being shared without any credits, saying “Isn’t this from your book?”. The illustrations from the Clay & Pounds book that I revised (pictures by David Pounds, accompanying text for them was mine) were being shared by a physical therapy company in Brazil with the statement “For more lessons like this, visit our website.” By the time Lippincott’s lawyers got that stopped, it had been shared more than 600,000 times on FB alone.

I thought of a time when I shared an article written by a well-known  friend and colleague on my social media, and a reader went ballistic and claimed it was someone else’s work. The author of it shared proof that she had written it in the 90s, long before the person that the reader was claiming whose work it was ever did a massage, and long before she was on social media holding herself out as an expert on the topic.

For the record, anyone is free to use anything I have written, whether that’s in a class or a publication. Please leave my name and/or the link to the book, article, or my website on it.

I am sharing this story because it was a hard life lesson for me. Although no one other than myself and the magazine owner, who is someone I know personally and like and respect, and whom I don’t expect to make this public or to ruin my reputation in any way, knows about it, I thought it was important to share this lesson. I thought I was doing the right thing when I included the links to the source articles in my article. I didn’t go far enough. I failed to include quotation marks. I am approved by the NCBTMB to teach over 30 classes, and I plan to run every single one of them through a plagiarism checker to make sure I’m not guilty of anything else. This is a good article, Accidental and Unintended Plagiarism, which is enlightening. Unfortunately for me, I should have read that before submitting the article.  I regret this entire incident. I regret that after writing for the past 50 years that this has happened this late in my career.  It’s never too late for a wake-up call, regardless of how painful it is.

Starting Over

Laura AllenA couple of months ago, any one of us could have started a sentence with “When this is over,” and chances are, no one except your family or close friends might have known what personal problem you were referring to. Now, everyone knows what it refers to: COVID-19. For many of us, it’s personal on some level. We’ve had a friend or family member or acquaintance who was sick with it, or died from it, or maybe you’ve personally been sick with it.

At this point, no one knows when “it” will be over…”it” meaning the effects on society. There are millions of Americans out of work due to shutdowns of “non-essential” businesses. There are shortages in grocery stores…every day on my social media, I am still seeing people who can’t find a roll of toilet paper. This is Easter Sunday, and millions of Americans who would otherwise be at church are at home watching a service on television or a streaming service on the Internet.  Some churches are holding parking lot services where the congregants remain in their cars.

I’ve had a lot of private messages from massage therapists asking my opinion on when we’ll be back to work. The short answer is, I don’t know. Nobody knows. I live in NC, and the governor ordered things shut down until April 30. I personally believe it will be extended beyond that, and even if it isn’t, I will probably wait several weeks beyond the date that it is lifted to go back to work. I’m the suspicious type, as well as one who errs on the side of caution, and I fear a “back to work” decision from the government that is based on economics instead of actual safety.

We tend to think in terms of ourselves and our own occupation and our own lives. There may be no intention of being selfish or self-centered, but that’s the way things are. In reality, there are going to be a lot of businesses, of every type, that do not survive this shutdown. Your favorite restaurant, coffeehouse, or bar may be forced out of business. Your neighborhood florist, art gallery, or gym that is privately owned and not part of a big chain may be gone. While some landlords are giving rent relief, others are not. Some business owners simply cannot pay rent for several months when they don’t have money flowing into the business to cover that cost. In fairness, some landlords count on their rent money to make ends meet themselves.

For many massage therapists (and others), once the shutdown is over, this will be like starting all over at square one. While many may have faithful clients that can’t wait to come back, we have to consider that many of our self-employed clients, or those who work in businesses deemed non-essential, may be in the same boat we’re in: unemployment checks are not coming in yet, but the bills keep piling up.  A lot of people may have to choose between getting a massage or trying to catch up on their bills.

For those who are self-employed, and ICs (many of whom are misclassified, but that’s another story altogether), this situation may cause you to rethink your employment circumstances. Those who are employees have had a much easier time signing up for unemployment. While the federal government has announced the intention to extend unemployment payments to self-employed and ICs, most state unemployment websites have been waiting on instructions from the feds to get that started. NC’s website states that it is expected to be in place by April 25 for self-employed and ICs to file. If you don’t have a cash cushion, that’s a big financial strain for those who are waiting.

Anytime you choose to be self-employed, you’re taking personal risks. If you’re using independent contractors in your business, they (and you, if you have them misclassified) are also taking a personal risk. Ask yourself if you could live for 6 months without money coming in. If the answer is no, rethink your decision about your work circumstances. Go over your budget and see where you can cut expenses in order to save money. Maybe that means doing without stopping for coffee on the way to work every morning or doing without eating out. Or giving up your addiction to new shoes, or carefully tracking the mindless spending most of us do. I recently saw a meme pointing out that spending 27.35 per day adds up to $10,000 in one year. Using an app like EveryDollar can help you see where your money is actually going.

Many people are just one paycheck away from total disaster. I’ve been there myself in years gone by. This isn’t meant to be negative; it’s meant to be a reality check. We don’t know how long this is going to last, but it’s already evident that many people are in big trouble.  It’s a good idea, when the world returns to some semblance of normalcy, to treat this as an opportunity to start over with a plan to be better prepared, so the next emergency doesn’t knock you flat.

It’s also a fact that at the end of our lives, none of us are going to say “I wish I had worked more.” We’ll be wishing we had taken more time to stop and smell the roses, spent more time appreciating our families, had more quality time with our spouse, or learned to play the flute or paint or whatever you think you never have time for. If you have that time now, just do it. While you’re adding up your problems, don’t forget to add up your blessings.

In closing, I express my gratitude to all the medical personnel who are on the front lines, and the essential workers who are enabling us to still go to the grocery store, the gas station, and wherever else we NEED to go. I’ve found out in the past couple of months that I don’t need to go near as many places as I thought I did. Bless all who are sick and suffering and all those who have lost loved ones.  Bless you all and may you remain safe and well.

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