The Challenges of Massage Therapy Education and Practice with Dave Cordoviz RMT

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Purvus Versus
.
My name is Eric Purvus.
I'm a massage therapist, coursecreator, continuing education
provider, curriculum advisor andadvocate for evidence-based
massage therapy.
In this episode, we welcomeDave Kordovas, who is a new RMT
in Vancouver, bc.
Dave and I have an engagingdiscussion on his journey
through RMT school and what ithas been like growing a practice

(00:31):
.
Dave shares with us histhoughts and feelings about what
he appreciated in massageschool, as well as what he feels
could be improved upon.
If you enjoy this episode,please rate it and share it on
your favorite social mediaplatforms.
You can also support my podcastby making a donation at
buymeacoffeecom slash helloob.
Purpose Versus can also befound on YouTube, so please

(00:53):
check us out there and subscribe.
So thanks for being here and Ihope you enjoy this episode.
Hello everybody and welcome toanother episode of Purpose
Versus.
I'm excited here to have Dave.
Is it Cordova's?
Is that how you pronounce yourlast name?
Absolutely yes, dave Cordova's,who is a relatively new RMT
practicing at numerous locationsin throughout the lower
mainland in BC.

(01:13):
So he's here today just to talkto us a little bit more about
kind of his experience of beinga student and what it's like
being a new grad and building apractice, and you know the kind
of learning journey that we gothrough when we get out of
school, pass the board exams,then we head out to the real
world.
So I'm hoping he's going togive us some insight into what
his personal experience is like.
So before we start, dave, today, just tell us a little bit

(01:35):
about you.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, so my name is Dave.
I'm a recent grad.
I've been practicing for aboutsix months now.
I finished a board exam 2022.
I'm currently practicing inthree different clinics.
I really wanted to get myselfbusy and just really engross
myself into the RMT world.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Nice, so three clinics.
So are you working like, do youget any time off or do you
sleep in the office?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
No, no, no.
Actually, actually, to behonest, right now I'm currently
working seven days a week, butI'm actually gonna decrease one
day, because I also work at myfamily's restaurant too.
Oh, really, yes, yeah what'syour?
Family side, though it's like asmall philippine restaurant out
in north delta oh nice yeah,yeah, so I that that's like my
job before I went to RMT school.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Nice, you should put a plug in for the name of the
family restaurant, oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's called La
Meza Grill.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yes, fairly known within the Filipino community,
but it'd be great to have morepeople there.
Actually.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Perfect, all right, sounds good.
Well, next time I'm in I'm inthe lower mainland I'll have to
come come check that out.
I love filipino food actually,so I live in victoria, so we
don't have we don't really havea.
I don't know if we even have afilipino restaurant here on the
island yeah I don't?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I don't think so.
We do get a number of customerswithin like vancouver island.
They're like oh yeah, we'refrom the island.
We love you guys yeah, yeah,we're fans, we're fans, yeah
excellent, excellent.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
So the three clinics here are they?
Um, how many hours are youworking at each clinic, like?
That's like seven days a weekas an RMT?
I'm sure a lot of people arelistening, thinking this guy's
freaking crazy like, but you'renew, right?
You got to pay off your debtsand you got to build a practice,
so we're willing to sacrifice alittle bit.
But uh, like, how many hoursare you working every day on
average, like seeing clients?

Speaker 2 (03:28):
yeah, so I'm starting to get a lot busier now.
I'm actually only working sixdays a week as an rmt, so I'm
doing three days in one clinic,two days in the other clinic,
one day in one clinic.
Um, the clinic I'm working inright now is my main one.
This is called ariesphysiotherapy.
This one I work oh hard to say.
I'm available like nine to fourand then ten to seven and then

(03:53):
eight to one, but the thing is,as of right now, I'm not fully
fully booked yet.
Um, I want to say that I'mgetting about 20 to 25 hands-on
hours per week on average thesedays, and then I'm getting about
high twenties to like lowthirties patients per week.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Oh, that's pretty good.
That's pretty good, yeah, yeah.
So you haven't really found itdifficult then to build a
practice.
Like in six months you'repretty full, I would more so
than not.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, fairly busy actually.
Especially, I've I've heardfrom a lot of people that as a
guy it tends to start off alittle bit slower.
I did find that January,february that was kind of the
case.
But the new clinic I'm workingat, the one in Burnaby, it's
close by a hospital so I tend toget a lot of repeat patients
there With this clinic workingwith ICBC patients a lot, lot,

(04:45):
which I definitely enjoy.
I get a fair bit of consistentpatients as well too.
Yeah, yeah.
But I I'd like to think that Ilike to think that some of like
the massage styles that I go for, or at least like how I make
people feel, kind of gives themthat opportunity or like that
desire to come back right, yeah,well you're doing something
right, always if people are, ifpeople are coming back and

(05:05):
they're happy, right, that'susually the yeah thing.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Right if it's the one and done person.
You know happens sometimes.
But if you're getting a lot ofrepeats from referrals and and
to be to be full early on, it isgreat.
Uh, I'm not really sure whatit's like throughout the rest of
the country, but I know here inbc, particularly in the
vancouver island in the lowermainland, it seems like most
people I talk to are it's prettyeasy to build a practice.
It was.
Is that the case with a lot ofyour classmates too?

(05:28):
Like, have you found thatthey've been able to build a
practice pretty easily?

Speaker 2 (05:32):
oh, I find that it's actually so different.
Um, the people that work inwithin the Vancouver proper or
Vancouver city itself, they tendto be very busy like
immediately, like I know oneperson who was telling me, I
think a few months ago she wasalready hitting like 30 people.
Some people have like waitlists already, but then some of

(05:53):
my other friends they're alsoavailable five, six days a week
but then they're getting about17, 18 patients per week.
So it really depends.
Yeah, I find that as you getcloser to the suburbs it's a
little bit harder.
There's a fair bit of rmts now,I find, yeah, especially
working in multidisciplinaryclinics.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
So yeah, well, it's funny, when I went to school 20
years ago now, the there was, Ithink there was about 1300, 1200
rmts in bc and now there's likeI think there's almost 6,000.
Yeah, Crazy 20 years of it wasat a five-fold increase in
therapists.
It's, it's crazy.
And there and the thing is is Iremember when I was in school

(06:35):
and the 1200, we were, Iremember being told by some of
our instructors who said thingslike the market's saturated,
you're a male, you're going tostruggle.
And the market's saturated,you're a male, you're going to
struggle.
And I remember being so scaredand and you know what.
But people have been saying thesame thing forever and I don't
know how true that is, becausemost of the whether you're male
or female, you're most peopletend to be pretty busy.

(06:58):
You know, more or less, um, atleast here in BC, and um, you
know, they, they keep sayingthat the market's saturated but
they keep adding more therapistsout there and they keep people
keep, you know, filling theirpractices.
So I don't know, I don't knowif there's much to be said with
all those kind of scare tacticsand fear mongering.
I think is some of the things.
That.

(07:18):
That's what I felt.
Anyway, I felt scared.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, I really don't know, Because when I was first
looking at clinics, there weresome clinics that have 22 RMTs.
It's wild.
But then a lot of those peopleare actually fairly booked too,
so hard to say.
But yeah, some patients like,for example, one of my patients
today told me that she's lookingfor a new RMT because the one
she normally sees.

(07:42):
She hasn't been able to see himfor over a year now.
So hard to say.
Yeah, hard to say.
Hard to say.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Well, it's a good industry to be in, I think, in
terms of if you can be young,relatively quick to get through
school and you can get out thereand make a living pretty,
pretty quick, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
But yeah, it's it's.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
That's good.
I'm happy, that's good.
I'm impressed to hear that.
Uh, so I just wanted curiousabout your.
You don't have to tell me whereyou went to school unless you
want to.
Um, I'm just kind of curiousabout your experience as an RMT
student.
Can you tell us a little bitabout, like, just what was your
experience?
Did you like it?
Just like it yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
So regarding that, I feel like it's such a split.
I definitely enjoyed my time atmy school.
I went to Langara.
It was different from my pastexperience because I have a
Bachelor of Science inBiomedical Physiology and
Kinesiology from SFU and myexperience from that school was

(08:38):
very, very different fromLangara.
I was coming in with anexperience in having 400 people
in one class.
I was coming in from with anexperience in having like 400
people in one class, but inLingara we have at most two
dozen and I think by the end ofthe program we had about like 18
, 19 people.
So I really enjoyed the aspectof closeness I was able to get
with my classmates, with myfriends, as well as just getting

(08:59):
to really know the instructorsand asking them how their
practice is like, what are somethings that they do to kind of
like better themselves asclinicians, like how do they
take care of themselves.
So I thought that was a reallynice experience.
To have instructors actuallyknow your name.
To me was such an unusualconcept too, and I definitely
appreciated that, and a few ofmy other friends who also came

(09:23):
from like UBC or SFU basicallyhad the same thought process as
well, where it was such a closerknit sort of experience as a
student yeah, it's part of acommunity, right like when you
go to massage school.
It's like you get this kind ofsense of community because you
already know as everybody, andit's almost like a little bit of
everyone becomes a little bitof a family or extended family
exactly yeah, and that'sdefinitely something that I do

(09:45):
appreciate um a lot morecloseness, yeah yeah yeah, but,
um, that said, there werecertain things about school that
I wasn't really the biggest fanof, like I don't want to throw,
like you said, like I don'twant to throw anyone under the
bus, but yeah, I mean, I tend tobe, I like to think that I'm a
very opinionated person,unfortunately, but um, that's
why I wanted you on here, Dave.

(10:06):
Yeah, there's certain things Ididn't really like in terms of
like the subject that is that wewere learning, or just certain
classes that made me go like wasthere ever really a point in
this Cause?
Like I didn't really see therelevance in clinical practice.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Yeah, did you have any specific examples that you
want to give?

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Like of something that you're like, why am I doing
this?
Oh yeah, so definitely therewere certain classes which I
think was I still think is weirdis, for example, we took a
nutrition course which, yeah,that took about like three or
four classes which in my, in myhead, I'm like I thought we're
not allowed to talk aboutnutrition at all as RMT, so why
are we taking this?
Or certain science.

(10:46):
I mean, it's hard to say, likeit's good, I find that it's a
good idea to really learn aboutanatomy and physiology, but then
, to a certain extent, some ofthe detail that we did learn is
a little bit like, well, it'snot really relevant to clinical
practice.
Because one of the things thatI was, that I I kind of figured
out about RMT school is thatthey constantly tell you how
hard it is.
Like that I was, that I I kindof figured out about RMT school
is that they constantly tell youhow hard it is.

(11:08):
Like that's something thateveryone says like, oh, it's so
hard, you're going to be burntout, you're going to be
exhausted and, honestly, that'sabsolutely true.
But I think that there werecertain things that they could
have done to make the program alittle bit easier or at least
more concentrated towards actualclinical practice.
Right, a lot of filler, yeah,yeah, and I feel like having

(11:31):
filler is not necessarily bad.
But I think there were othercourses we could have taken, or
certain courses we could havetaken longer.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
That would have come out a lot better for us as
clinicians I would 100 with you,and I think this is an argument
that gets used often whenpeople are, because one thing
I'm a big advocate for is likechanging the curriculum or
updating the curriculum, makingit more evidence-based, and
ideally for me, I would love tosee it in the university system,
but that's like a, that's alofty dream.

(12:00):
Who knows if that's going tohappen?
But I've heard so many timesfrom so many different
organizations and associationsand schools, is that, well, we,
we, we can't, we can't increasethe length of the program, and I
and I think, well, you don'tnecessarily.
If you were going to keep it ina private school like it is now
, you don't need to lengthen theprogram necessarily, although I

(12:21):
think it'd be great, butthere's so much stuff in there
that you don't even need tolearn about that.
Why don't you add that on tosomething, like you said, more
clinically relevant, like you'retalking, um, like nutrition,
like it's not even our scope ofpractice.
Is it good to know somethingabout nutrition?
Maybe, but is that like, do youneed that in your, in your, in
your schooling?
Probably not, that's.
You know 10, 12, 15 hours ofschooling that you could put on

(12:44):
something else.
Do we need to know the detailsof, like, cell division and the
reproductive system, or like,embryological development of
different tissues?
That stuff's kind ofinteresting, but is it something
that you need to know for yourentry to level practice?
Like, is it?
You know how much detail do youneed in those things?
And if I look back at the stuffI learned in school, I think

(13:06):
there's so much stuff we learnedthat was just totally
unnecessary and I would haveloved to learn more kind of
clinical applicable skills,exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Exactly.
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
Like I don't think therapeuticexercise was really emphasized
enough, like I don't think itwas emphasized enough on how to,
how to listen to patients, howto talk to patients.
You know, like yes, we learnedpathology, but then how does
pathology actually look likewithin a clinical setting?
Like we did gloss over it acouple times so we didn't really

(13:37):
go in depth about it.
Yeah, and I think that I, Itotally.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
I love that.
You said it too about thepathology.
I mean, I totally agree witheverything you're saying here.
So it's a bit of an echochamber, but that's okay.
That's what we're here for,right?
yeah, that's what we're here for, yeah, just to tell each other,
we're right, um is, and that'sone thing.
That that, um, I'd be curiousand I probably know the answer.
But I'm just going to make anassumption here is that you
learn about pathologies, andwhen I was in school 20 years
ago it was the same thing.

(14:03):
You learn about thesepathologies, but then when you
don't really learn about howthat impacts your clinical
practice or what, what it isthat you would expect or would
be kind of best practices withto work with that population,
for example, a simple one wouldbe like osteoarthritis, yeah,
you know, what does that present?
Like, um, what are kind of someassessments to see the severity

(14:26):
of the?
You know the region, whetherit's knee, hip, spine, shoulder,
neck, whatever, uh, and thenwhat would be kind of like
what's the best recommendationsfor for treatment in home care?
Right, so, obviously, massage.
There's only so many ways youcan massage, but there's all the
other stuff that's within ourscope of practice, right, like
about, you know, load managementor progressive loading, or, um,

(14:47):
you know, uh rather than like.
At least the way I rememberedit was like someone's got
osteoarthritis and then, okay,these are some of the things
that you will see, and then itwas basically just like massage
them and get them to like dothese stretches and
strengthening things.
It was so.
It was so vague that I neverfelt comfortable with any of the
pathology stuff in terms ofreally having a solid

(15:09):
understanding.
So you think that you couldthey could go into so much more
detail on that.
It would be so much better foreverybody, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 2 (15:17):
And I do think that's a lot of um, kind of like my
sort of concerns about it where,yeah, cool, we learned about
osteoarthritis, like we'relearning about rheumatoid
arthritis, like certaincontraindications, but how do we
actually get someone who hasosteoarthritis to feel better,
to actually live life, asopposed to let's just give you a
nice massage and then that's it.
And I think from myunderstanding, from my

(15:38):
classmates, it's also one of thebiggest things is we didn't
really know how to treatmentplan.
We know how to give someone anice massage for one appointment
and then after that it's justlike, oh, what now?
And I think that's part of alsowhy a lot of newer clinicians
aren't really that busy, becausewe just don't know how.
Like I had to ask a lot ofother rmt's, I had to ask a lot

(16:02):
of physios like, what do you do?
Like, how do you do this?
Like, how do you tell people tocome back?
Like how, how do you actuallymake a plan long-term, as
opposed to just saying like,yeah, come back to feel nice?

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Right, especially if they have a.
And then that comes down tosomething you touched on earlier
, I think, which was you weretalking about like communication
and how to like talk to peopleand how to, you know, connect
and build that therapeuticalliance, and which is, you know
, that's a very difficult skillto learn and where it's hard to
do.
But if you this is myexperience here is that if you

(16:39):
learn how to talk and listen topeople and just be more present
with them, it makes a mucheasier treatment plan, because
they kind of tell you what it isthey want to do.
Yes, absolutely.
They become a.
Be more present with them.
It makes a much easiertreatment plan because they kind
of tell you what does they wantto do?

Speaker 2 (16:46):
Yes, absolutely.
They become a lot morecomfortable with you.
They start realizing like, oh,I can actually tell this person
something and they'll payattention, as opposed to, oh
yeah, just go stretch it out.
Oh yeah, just go strengthen it,which doesn't really mean
anything.
Yeah, like it's so easy to tellsomeone.
Yeah, you should go strengthenit.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
yeah, but then why should they care to begin with,
right, yeah yeah, and that's,and that's, that's it, that's a,
that's a big error.
It's a big error.
Hey, that you know, and I knowthat the the argument is often
entry to level practice, likewe're trying to teach people to
be safe, um, and effective andethical.
And, yeah, maybe you're beingsafe like someone comes to see
you that has some type ofpathology and you're, maybe

(17:28):
you're not making them worse,but are you really being
effective with them?
exactly maybe, but and youprobably, you're probably the
very least you're hopefully notmaking them worse.
But how can you be mosteffective with them, which,
which is the thing that from theother RMTs I've I talked to and
relatively new grads that I'vebeen doing these series of
episodes on, and that's kind ofthe this there's an overlying

(17:51):
theme there is they just don'tfeel quite ready to take this
information and apply it topractice to be most effective or
more effective.
It's just like don't hurtpeople, watch out for these
things and just give them a nicemassage.
Well, yeah, that's, that's likethe very lowest common
denominator.
I would like to think that weshould want to reach higher from

(18:11):
our, our education.
Right, obviously, we're goingto keep learning as we, as we uh
develop and as we we grow astherapists, but you'd think that
just pumping people through theschooling to pass a minimum
exam is, I don't know.
It seems almost negligent to me.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Exactly and I do think at some points that's what
was emphasized is like you haveto do this to pass the board
exam.
This like extremely difficulthurdle that everyone has to go
through.
Then after that, yeah, you'refree, you have free reign to
learn whatever.
But then it's frustratingbecause you know you're paying
so so much money, you're goingthrough so much mental stress,
emotional stress, your time isdedicated to passing a board

(18:50):
exam as opposed to actuallydedicated to being a better
clinician.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
I think at the, at its essence, that's what was
most frustrating yeah, and thatwas that was actually one thing
I wanted to talk to you abouttoo, did you?
Did you find that that was thekind of overarching emphasis of
the program was just to pass theexams, or was that kind of?
Do you have some instructorsthat were willing to kind of
give you a bit more in additionto then to the basic base

(19:15):
knowledge you need to pass theexams?

Speaker 2 (19:18):
Yes, absolutely so.
I think as a program, the goalis to get as much people passing
the board exam as possible, andI do see the business side of
that.
But the great thing is therewere some instructors that were
very honest about certain things, such as I had some instructors
that would say like okay, thisis probably what's going to be
like in the board exam, but ifyou're looking at actual real

(19:39):
life clinical practice, this isnot going to be the case.
This is what you should lookout for, this is what you should
be doing, and those arebasically my favorite
instructors.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, yeah, the ones that kind of put the extra
effort into like impart theirclinical experience with you.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Exactly, exactly, and that's exactly what I wanted to
learn in school.
But at the same time I can'treally blame the school for that
.
I can't really blame thoseother instructors.
I just feel like, yeah, sure,we learned what was good for
clinical practice, but I mean,that doesn't always translate to
what they're looking at for anabort exam.
I feel like at some pointthere's a lot of like checking
off, like yeah, like taking offcheck boxes, essentially like,

(20:16):
oh, this person can do this,this, this is this, but then
again we're not really lookinginto is this person being a good
clinician period?

Speaker 1 (20:26):
yeah, and that's, and that should be the focus I
always feel is that you know,yeah, of course you need to pass
a board exam because you haveto get your license to practice
and to you know for people tocome pay you and you know claim
insurance.
But the good, the focus shouldbe on creating good clinicians,
because a good clinician willpass that board exam exactly,
exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
And it kind of goes back to like I don't necessarily
I.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
I recognize that school was hard, I recognize
that for exam was hard, but Ijust feel like it didn't need to
be that hard right it could,they could have made it in a
more more applicable, morepractical but not so difficult,
with the wasted time on thingsthat weren't really exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Exactly Because at that point, as a student,
admittedly, at some point youkind of just don't care anymore.
At that point, you just careabout passing, yeah, which is
like, yeah, that's not the best,right.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
What was it like, though, compared to doing your
degree at SFU, in terms of the,the quality or the content of
the education?
How would they compare?

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Truthfully, the anatomy and physiology portion,
the physiology, were actuallynot that far.
They're not that different.
So with SFU we definitely wentinto a lot more detail, to the
point of we were just straightmemorizing something, whereas
for RMT school, admittedlybecause it is shorter, we just

(21:46):
went over like a wider grasp ofthings.
But I remember being impressed,like okay, like this is pretty
legitimate information, like Iremember reading this.
I remember I recognized this, Irecognized that, so I thought
that was great.
Um, I do have to say,specifically for Lengare, at
least the MSAC course wassignificantly better taught than
it was at SFU.
I think SFU was a lot of justlike memorizing.
Whereas our instructors Langerwas very good at actually

(22:09):
explaining to us the concept, itbasically became a like a
language course.
We were learning like how, likeyeah, like, for example, like
brevis brevis means short, soanything that involved the word
brevis is just a shorter muscleand it's usually intrinsic, so
like little things like that wasvery helpful.
Yeah, yeah.
So I like that part of thelearning?

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Yeah, yeah, I did.
When I did my undergrad a longtime ago now in the 90s it was I
did.
I did anatomy and physiologycomponent of my, of my program
and I remember being extremelyjust not, it was just memorizing
, it wasn't nothing applicableto it.
So it was much easier, I foundwhen you go into the massage

(22:52):
program to learn your MSKparticularly uh, it made it was
much easier because you're like,oh, this is, this is what these
things do, and you're able totouch them and palpate them and
move them around.
So you kind of had that, justthat.
It was rather than just as likevisual learning.
There's a little bit ofkinesthetic and applicable stuff
with it too, which made a loteasier yes, exactly, exactly the

(23:15):
fact that.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
So we did the lecture part and then, like a day later
, we did the actual palpationpart, so that one is really nice
, or just like I.
I found that I wasn't reallymemorizing the muscle actions
anymore.
I was just looking at like,okay, this is the origin, this
is the insertion, what would bethe logical movement here, if
this pulls from this direction?
So that was a perspective thatI didn't really see at sfu and I

(23:38):
really enjoyed that fromlaguerre yeah that's great,
that's great.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
What about things like evidence-based practice?
Because this is something youat least when I was in
university, everything was likeevidence-based, evidence-based.
And then you go to massageschool and those terms, at least
around the school, were neverused.
Was that stuff ever brought upto you with you Like this is
evidence-based, or was it justnothing there?

Speaker 2 (24:00):
Well, this is kind of where it starts getting hard to
say, because, definitely, goingto a university, there's a huge
emphasis on actualevidence-based practice or not
evidence-based practice, butjust being or just looking into
good research, like we weretaught on how to look at.
Oh, what makes research bad?
What makes research biased?
What makes up a study?

(24:21):
What are the components of the,the study, why would this be
more relevant to others?
Why would this not beapplicable for real life?
And why would that beapplicable for real life?
And I thought that that wasreally great.
We were taught to logicallythink over everything, like we
shouldn't just hear a claim andgo like, okay, that sounds about
right and it's more just, likeI really emphasize on what are

(24:43):
the sources for this claim, likewhat proof does that person
have?
And that was great at SFU andunfortunately, I don't
necessarily think that that wassomething that I saw in Lingara
as a program.
Individual instructors weredefinitely a lot better about it
, but I just felt like thenarratives of certain modalities

(25:07):
were so pushed through Likethey would talk about evidence
supporting those narratives, butwhat about evidence that would
go against those narratives,which, as far as I understand,
is just as important, if notmore important?

Speaker 1 (25:21):
100%, 100% agree with that for sure.
Yeah, and that's the thing too.
That is.
That is a problem.
We can probably talk about thisfor a bit here.
Now is the you know, you go toschool and you're taught these
things and you're taught andyou're shown that there's
evidence, but you're only everseeing one side of the evidence.
And if you have the, theknowledge or skills, you can
often look at that and be likethere's something doesn't quite

(25:43):
fit right with these.
Claims are being made by anddoes this paper say what you
think this modality is supposedto be doing?
Like?
And all of a sudden, there'sbig, there's big leaps in, in,
in knowledge, or leaps in, uh,logical leaps that people will
will apply to research and say,oh well, in this paper you know,
I'm just gonna throw this onthere in this paper people have

(26:04):
fas, I'm just going to throwthis out there In this paper
people have fascia, and sotherefore, that means that when
we do these things on people'shands, that we're releasing this
specific fascia.
Well, it doesn't say that inthose papers.
Like, people will take theseanatomical papers, yeah, and
then they'll use that to supporta claim for a modality.
Oh, yes, people have cerebralspinal fluid.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
So, therefore, when we put our hands on people's
heads, we are manuallymanipulating cerebral spinal
fluid, and then people makethose kind of claims, you're
like, well, that's not what thatresearch says, exactly, exactly
, and that's I do think thatthat's part of my um, part of
like my hang-ups on when westarted learning those things,
because initially I was like allin on a lot of these things,
like okay, like it sounds prettylegit, sounds pretty good.
But then at some point aroundsem four, sem five, there were
certain claims that were beingmade in some of these classes

(26:51):
that made me go like, wait aminute, I don't, I don't really
think that makes a lot of senseand it just kept on going.
And I think that's where a lotof my personal frustration
started coming from.
Because, yeah, honestly, Idon't even think a lot of these
classes gave in examples ofpapers and why they would and
why those narratives quoteunquote make sense.
It's more just like okay, thisis my theory and, um, if I can

(27:17):
increase this person's range ofmotion, that must mean my theory
is correct and in my head I'mlike but there are so many
reasons why someone's range ofmotion can increase temporarily.
You know, like five hours onthe road, that range of motion
is probably going to be back tonormal, but then that's never
really addressed.
It's very much like a beforeand after photo, with no real
consideration for actuallong-term effects right.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
So, yeah, someone comes in, they're standing
crooked.
You do massage on them.
They're able, they feel morecomfortable, they will stand
upright.
So therefore, you've just likerealigned and fixed whatever
your narrative is here.
But then the person goes awayand and then, and then, like 10
minutes later, they're.
They're sitting standing theway they were before.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Yes, exactly, exactly , and it's just that part was
never really talked about.
It's very much like um, let'sdo a little bit of visceral
manipulation here.
Oh, look, how much more likehip flexion there is now, but
you're not really looking at thefact that I can literally turn
the light switch off and on andit would do the exact same thing
.
So, yeah, and that's that'skind of like my sort of personal

(28:21):
hang-up about it.
Truthfully, it's just we're notreally taught to critique
ourselves, and I do think thatthat is extremely important as
clinicians that help people,because things can always be
better, and I do think it's suchan important first step to
realize, like, just being humbleenough to say like maybe I'm
wrong about this and I shouldtry to fix myself if I do find

(28:42):
out that I'm wrong about this.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
And that's huge.
I like to say that humble is isthat we need to realize that we
don't know everything and thatwe're always learning, we're
always developing, there'salways new knowledge coming
around.
But, yeah, when and this is thisis one of the biggest problems
I see in our profession, and ispeople are taught these things
in school by a well-meaninginstructor who is perpetuating

(29:10):
an untruthful idea and that thengets taken as fact to say, 15,
20, 30, how many students are inthe class and then they go out
there and start believing thisstuff and then they start
telling that information totheir colleagues and they start
telling that information totheir, their patients or their
clients, whoever comes to seethem, and then it just becomes

(29:31):
this kind of this constantperpetuation of, like, incorrect
knowledge, and a lot of peopleare going to listen to this and
I've heard me say stuff before.
They're like was it doing anyharm?
I'm like, well, it might.
It might for some people, thatkind of those beliefs, those
understandings, might be harmful, but at the very least, it's
wrong.
Yes, so should we as ahealthcare profession, should we
, should we be allowed to betelling people things that have

(29:53):
no factual base, unless we couldjust?
say hey in my opinion or in myexperience, this is what I do
and this might work.
That's, that's part of yourclinical experience, as part of
the evidence.
But we should?
I don't think we should beallowed to, and I don't think it
should be accepted that we canjust tell things to students and
then they just are made tobelieve it and then they go and

(30:15):
on and on, have their entirecareer with with ideas and
thoughts that aren't supported.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
That just to me seems so wrong so exactly no, I, I
completely agree, and it's likeyou said.
I fully agree.
It's not it.
I don't see that people aresaying these things because they
want to take advantage ofpeople.
Not like that at all.
I just feel like they haven'treally gotten that chance to be
countered in their in, in theirbeliefs, and I do think part of
that is because there's such ahuge echo chamber of.

(30:43):
As a massage therapist, we cando so many things with our hands
and the idea that we can'twhich I'm realizing now is
actually such a small minorityof people believe that and it's
very unfortunate that it's small.
But I it sucks to kind of liketalk about it to other people
too, cause I do also feel likewhen you bring it up to other

(31:03):
people, you're taking it, takingit, or they're taking it, as if
you're trying to attack them,but then you're also not.
You're just trying to changepeople's perspectives or just,
you know, just trying to bebetter, essentially trying to
know better trying to be lesswrong is a term I always like to
use exactly yeah, and I dothink that's one of the things

(31:24):
that we don't really talk aboutmuch is that science is not
really it's not.
It's not like a group of justlike old people deciding like,
oh, this is right, this is wrong, like science is a way of
looking at things.
It's a way of observing things,and whatever science says now is
based out of our currentevidence.
Whatever science was saying 20years ago was based out of that

(31:45):
current evidence, and I don'tagain.
I don't necessarily think thatit's wrong that people used to
believe those things, but nowthat we have the ability to know
better, I do think that we havea responsibility, like you said
, to be better, and we have aresponsibility to actually teach
patients better, becausethey've been told for so many
years now that so many thingsare wrong with their bodies that

(32:08):
they're going to break down,that they're not, they're not
going to be able to like beactive anymore, they're not
really going to enjoy life like,oh yeah, you're definitely
gonna have surgery in a year andhonestly, that's for most
people that's not true.
It's not true and it kind ofhurts.
It hurts me to hear that fromsome of my patients too, like
being told that, yeah, I can'tdo squats anymore and I can't go

(32:32):
hiking anymore, or I've beentold that I'm going to be in
pain for the rest of my life,like that's so disheartening.
And I do think that, not justas RMTs but as clinicians, we
can do so much better than that.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
For sure, for sure.
And that's the thing was.
What happens is when we havethis I don't know what the
proper term is, I'm just goingto say it's a negativity bias
where, as a clinician, we oftenare taught to think about all
the things people can't do orshouldn't do, rather than what

(33:03):
are the things that you want to?
What things can you do?
And in my clinical career, I'veseen that all the time where,
like you said, people come inand, oh, I'm told I shouldn't
play sports again, I shouldn'tgolf again, I shouldn't.
You know what?
I got to change my job?
I can't go to the gym.
All these things are told theycan't do.
And the reason for why they'retold they can't do it is usually

(33:39):
based on an unsupported premise.
This is what goes back to whatwe were talking about before,
about these claims are just madeand passed on from generation
to generation of therapists and,whether it's massage therapists
or any other allied healthcareprofessional not supported, can
create problems in certainpopulations of people where they
just they're basically toldthey can't do things.
Oh because, oh yeah, well, ifyou do this, you're gonna, you
know, ruin your joint, or oryour your, your tissues are too
tight and so, therefore, youknow, if you you can't do that,

(34:01):
because then they're just goingto tighten up again and then
you're going to feel that samepain and like there's these
stories are made that are, thatare so unhelpful, and you know,
well-meaning clinicians, I don'tthink they mean to do it.
Everyone wants to help.
I would like to think, and Idon't think they're taking
advantage, but the knowledge isis started, is put into them in
school and it's just perpetuatedby an industry that just keeps

(34:23):
on feeding all the things peoplecan't do rather than trying to
empower and that's the biggestproblem I see and the public
suffers from that, I know.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
I definitely agree in that sense.
Yeah, it's just, it sucks tojust, yeah to just constantly be
telling people that, no, you'renot going to eat, that life is
not going to be okay, when I Ido feel like we have such a huge
responsibility to teach themwhat.
What things can they do?
Okay, like you have thispathology, you have this
condition.

(34:53):
Well, what things can you enjoy?
And maybe, for all you know,maybe there's something that you
can do now that can actuallyprogress you to doing something
you enjoy that down the road.
Like I don't understand why wedon't just focus on all like the
good things and bring that upto people.
We it's, like you said, like wetend to really focus on all the
negative things.
We don't talk about what thingspeople can do to make their

(35:13):
lives better, or like we don'ttalk about what things people
can do to really enjoy life.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Still, yeah, when you were in school and you were,
you know, you know, I brought upthe evidence-based things and
people said evidence but theydidn't really support it.
Did that ever go like?
Did they ever talk aboutcritical thinking or any like?
Were you ever allowed orencouraged to have discussions
about you know any or to beskeptical of what I think you

(35:40):
were learning, or was it justlearn this and accept it?

Speaker 2 (35:47):
you were learning or is it just just learn this and
accept it?
Honestly, I don't think I don'tthink we were ever really
encouraged, but I don't think itwasn't encouraged to.
It's kind of like what I wassaying before at that point in
schooling, you're just soexhausted that you don't really
have energy to to criticizethings.
You don't really have energy to, um, to question things.
At that point you're just likeyou know what, whatever, I'll
just read this, I'll memorizethis for now and I'll just pass

(36:09):
it class, just so I can make itthe next semester, just so I can
make it a board exam.
And that's part of part of likewhy I really don't like the
fact that it was difficult, likeI just didn't think it needed
to be.
I I greatly, I greatly believethat it would have been so much
more beneficial if we had a lotmore discussion.
Not every instructor that saidlike.

(36:30):
Some instructors were prettygood at having that discussion,
but usually at that point thatwas already like semester five,
semester six out of six.
So you're so burnt out likeyou're so tired.
Attendance was so low.
Yeah, you're just done.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So it's just at that point like, and, speaking for my
classmates here.
It's just like, okay, you hearthis information.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
That doesn't sound right, but honestly I just don't
care anymore yeah yeah, yeah,it's unfortunate, it's very
unfortunate it is unfortunateand, yeah, I mean things could
be better and that's why that'swhy I like having these
conversations too is because youknow, maybe somebody will
listen and they'll be like, hey,hey, you know what.
They're there, the change isokay.
We shouldn't just accept thestatus quo and we should, like
we need to question these thingsand that's why I mean that's, I

(37:14):
don't know, sometimes I feellike I'm I'm screaming into the
wind.
But yeah, we need to have theseconversations so people can
start to think, hey, like, look,let's, maybe we can change
things in school, maybe weshould add this stuff into our
program and we can still put outtherapists that are going to
pass the board exams.
It's not, it's not thatdifficult and, like you just
said, right, you get kind ofburnt out, making it more

(37:36):
difficult.
It needs to be when you couldfocus on, like, good quality
discussion and learning.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah, exactly and I don't understand.
Like at learning, yeah exactly,and I don't understand.
Like, at some points it kind offelt like it was like a badge
of pride, like oh yeah, I passedthe board exam.
It was so hard.
But then, like I would hearstories, like we had one
instructor who used to be anurse and she actually said that
her nursing exam was harderthan the rmt exam.
And that just blows my mindlike we, we don't, we can't

(38:02):
really kill people as rmts, butas a nurse, right.
So why is it like that?
Like I don't, I don't, Igenerally just don't understand
it yeah, you probably ask 100people.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
You probably get 100 different answers yeah, yeah,
it's just, it is what it is sowhen you were in school you said
you didn't really learn muchabout evidence-based practice.
Did you guys like?
Did you get where the like thekind of the current pain science
stuff for biopsychosocialframeworks, were those type of
things introduced or discussedat all?

Speaker 2 (38:30):
definitely was.
Those things were brought uplike we learned a little bit
about um, those receptors, likethe anatomy portion of that, but
that was also a little bit late.
We talked about thebiopsychosocial model, but
that's another thing where itdidn't seem as emphasized as it
was.
At the end of the day, thewhole biomechanical portion was
so emphasized like these are theorthopedics.

(38:52):
This is the pain, like thistype of pain that they would
have.
This is what you do to massagethis.
But we didn't really talk aboutwhat it means to listen to
someone.
We didn't really talk aboutwhat it means to validate people
and just hear them out and itwas very much like this is the
type of massage you would do forthis presentation, as opposed

(39:13):
to maybe this person just reallyneeds some quiet time and just
a nice feeling massage.
Regardless of whatevertechnique that you use, as long
as they like it, as long as theyfeel great from it, just go for
it.
Yeah, like that was neverreally the topic is very much
like a how do we fix people?
Essentially?

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Is that fixing mindset rather than that
facilitating and kind ofcoaching and helping mindset?

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Exactly, exactly.
It was like looking at peopleas if they were cars, as opposed
to people.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah, yeah, and that's a big problem in in, in
all kinds of MSK education, isthere's still a lot of the
programs or most programs outthere seem to be that that fix
it, the biomechanical,patho-anatomical solution to, to
, to everything, and there's arole for that too, but we know
that it's in most cases it'sthat that specific approach
isn't.
Isn't that great.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Yeah, and I mean at the same time too, it's it kind
of makes sense because from alogistics perspective, that does
seem a lot easier to teach, asopposed to like getting the
nitty-gritty of, like getting toknow people, which can be a lot
tougher, like it's just aneasier sell to be like oh, if
you have great massagetechniques, like you can do this
, you could do that.
Versus you really have tolisten to people like you're

(40:21):
gonna have to go through somehard topics every now and then.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, Educating people to be uncertain or to be
comfortable in being uncertainis is not as easy as like
pattern recognition.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
Yes, yeah, like educating people to understand
that you're not always going tohave the right answer, you're
not always going to be the besttherapist for that person, is
very, very difficult.
Yeah and yeah.
Telling people that you're notalways going to be the best
therapist for that person isvery, very difficult.
Yeah and yeah.
Telling people that you'regonna have to be humble is not
it's not really a nicest thingto hear.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
yeah, I mean, it's great, though, that you, that
you, you felt like you had somea decent amount at least
introduction to kind of some ofthe pain science stuff, some of
the biopsychosocial stuff, um,which, which is more to be said
than a lot of places out there.
And I've heard good thingsabout langara, though, so, uh,
some of the people I've talkedto from there have said similar
things, so I think that'ssetting that school up more

(41:16):
better than some of the otherones, at least in my, in my, uh,
experiences out there.
Uh, but you, you said that,like you, you know, near the end
of your program you werebecoming a little more skeptical
and things weren't reallysitting with you, and I think
you reached out to me, didn'tyou?
When you were still a student.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
Yes, yes, that was actually the first time I
messaged you.
I think we were doing the casestudy and at that point I had
already seen on social media afew posts by physiotherapists
that started talking about thebiopsychosocial model in a lot
more detail.
They were challenging a lot ofthe beliefs that I held, coming
from massage school, and it kindof started making me look in

(42:00):
terms of it started kind ofmaking me look in treatment in
terms of more than just thebiomechanical aspect, like what
does it mean to actually havethat psychological aspect or
social aspect in terms of takingcare of someone and what it
means for their chronic pain?
So I kind of wanted to lookmore into that and I asked my
case study instructors about itand they kind of referred you to

(42:23):
me and I started looking toyour information more, like your
podcast with Jamie Johnson aswell, and it just completely
like blew my mind in terms ofjust like, oh my god, like a lot
of these things are makingsense, like to me, like this is
now actual evidence-basedpractice as opposed to the very
biased we're only going to lookat the evidence that supports us

(42:43):
type of evidence-based practice, and that just it just kept on
going like I started seeing moreand more social media posts, I
started reading the papers thatthey were posting, I started
talking to other people as well.
But, um, yeah, yeah, like,definitely it was.
I think it was semester five.
We took one class and, um, acertain claim was made in that

(43:06):
class that just made me go like,okay, nope, that's it.
I'm done like my brain can'thandle this anymore.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
And yeah, yeah, but definitely around semester four,
when we started doing casestudies, is when I got to really
be introduced by a psychosocialmodel and it kind of opened up
a whole new path for you to kindof start exploring and, you
know, challenging everythingmust be difficult, though, when
you were in student.
When you were a student, though, and because you're like, okay,
I'm learning all this stuff,and then in school, I'm learning
all this stuff and they don't.

(43:33):
These things do not match oh,it was rough.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
It was so rough I was , I was so frustrated.
I remember just being annoyingto my friends.
I just kept, I just keptbasically attacking everything
and I I hated that.
I was like that.
But I just think part of thatis burnout too, like the feeling
that man, I'm paying so muchmoney for this and what I'm
learning is just not real lifeanymore.

(43:58):
And and I felt like I was alittle bit duped in a sense,
because the first few semestersI fully bought in, like I fully
believe that I can sense fascia,like I fully believe that I can
like pop it, the si jointrotation, like things like that.
And then I was introduced to alot stronger evidence that made
me go like okay, maybe that'snot actually the case, which is

(44:22):
is a hard, hard thing to realize, but after a while you kind of
start realizing okay, okay, okay, like, just because I can't
really do those things doesn'tmean that I don't have value as
a clinician, like I can be somuch more than what I do with my
hands.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
Yeah, and you said that earlier too, that this is
one of the biggest problems thatpeople have is that when you
start to challenge these claims,people feel it's like a
personal attack against them.
And it's not.
It isn't usually and itshouldn't be, but it's more of a
questioning of ideas, or maybeit's an attack on an idea, but I

(44:58):
would say it's a hardquestioning of an idea that
doesn't have support.
So you know, people tend toidentify in our profession so
much with their modalities andwith their narratives behind
them.
Right, you look at mostpeople's websites, that rmts.
They tell you all thetechniques they do and all the
tissues they work on yeah,exactly exactly so.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
To be like, for example, like, let's say, you're
a huge craniosacral therapist,like and you've been doing that
for however many years, you'vehelped so many people already in
that sense and you've seenpeople get better and then
suddenly a person comes up thengoes like you know what the
narrative actually doesn't,doesn't match up.
Like how would you feel, right?
Like to feel like you'reprobably not going to feel very

(45:40):
great or you're probably justgoing to go like this person
doesn't know what they'retalking about.
Like I've done so much alreadyso it's just, it's a hard, hard
topic to talk about.
And I feel like it was a littlebit easier for me to move on
from that because I was still astudent, so I haven't really had
the years of experience tocement my personal beliefs.

Speaker 1 (45:59):
Well, the evidence out there actually supports that
.
What you learn in school as any, any health care profession,
probably any job but I I did apaper years ago on um kind of
some of the barriers andfacilitators for rmts uh, being
able to use and change theirbasically use research, evidence
and practice and a lot of itand a lot of the.

(46:22):
The barriers were that peoplejust weren't taught about the
stuff in school, right?
So the earlier you're taughtabout skepticism, the earlier
you're taught about theprinciples of evidence-based
practice, the more likely youare to be able to change your
beliefs.
Later You're more malleablewith your beliefs.
But if what you learn in schoolis a very hard, rigid way, the

(46:42):
longer you're in practice,usually the harder it is to
change your mind.
I think the data says somethinglike 60 of people won't change
their mind if it challenges whatthey learned in school.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Oh wow, it's quite significant yeah, yeah, way more
than half, yeah, yeah, I feellike that's actually such a just
an amazing like small lesson.
Just the idea that, hey, thisis what we're teaching you now,
but this is probably we'reteaching you now, but this is
probably going to change in thefuture Like just that little bit
of tidbit I feel like is goingto do wonders for just like

(47:13):
long-term progress.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yeah, if you had every teacher kind of plant that
seed and say, hey, look guys,like this is what we need to
teach you for your board exams.
This is kind of what some ofthe current research says.
But this is always good, thisstuff's always changing, right,
and and then just again, that'sokay, that's normal.
And then that way you're like,oh, okay, so maybe you know I

(47:35):
can still do these techniquesand I can still, you know, help
people, but maybe it's not doingwhat I think it's doing and
maybe I can change myexplanation, um, or my
understanding, and and that'sthat's okay.
And then it doesn't mean you'rea shitty therapist, it just
means, hey, like I'm justchanging my thinking and like
for me it was very difficult to,to, to, to unlearn, because I
came from a very like fascial,structural background.
Like that was the stuff I lovedand that's what I practiced for

(47:57):
the first, I don't know um,half my practice at least.
And then when you start to findstuff that is challenging that
and you think, yeah, this makesway more sense than what, than
what I thought before.
It's hard to unlearn that.
And so I know what it's likefrom both perspectives and

(48:17):
trying to help people to oreducate people to think
differently, but also know whatit's like to be the person to
unlearn, because it's verydifficult yes, yes and see,
that's a thing, though, like Idon't necessarily believe that
there's no space for thesemodalities.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
It's more of just there's no space for the
narratives that come with thesemodalities, like I, I think one
in particular, for example, likecraniosacral therapy.
Like I, I don't necessarilybelieve there's a time and place
to talk about how the uh, what,how the sutures of the skull
are very malleable, you can feelcerebral spinal fluid pumping.
I don't think that really makessense.

(48:53):
However, if you have a patientwith a highly sensitive nervous
system, very scared of touch, isin a lot of pain, they're
probably going to be benefitingfrom a series of techniques.
That's very soothing and verysubtle, right, so it's.
And you can basically applythat with literally any other
modality that we have.
Like we have the ability tohelp people feel good.

(49:15):
Like I don't understand why wedon't just capitalize on that.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, I a hundred percent agree with that.
I think that's a great, that'sa great way to to, to, to.
To summarize all the techniques, right Is that they're just
different ways of working withsomebody and interacting with
somebody.
And you know, I strongly feelthat we all the different
modality camps that are outthere, all the different ideas,
the different narratives, youknow how can one be right and

(49:42):
one be wrong?
Exactly, exactly, they're all.
They all work the same, thesame mechanism.
So it's just a different way ofinteracting with a human and we
should just keep it simple andwe shouldn't need these multiple
certification levels for forthese things and and um, I, yeah
, I, I find that a lot of those,those modality empires, they're

(50:05):
a good business, but they'renot necessarily always in the
best interest of the therapistor the person getting your care.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
And I do find that they kind of contain your
ability as an RMT as well.
When you start really focusingon the specifics and how to do
these modalities, you kind ofyou limit yourself to how often
you can use this.
You know, like I feel like ifyou kind of stop looking at it
as I'm going to do myofascialbecause this person has like a
fascial restriction, if you lookat it instead as this person

(50:39):
probably likes myofascialtechniques and you try it out on
them and they like it, whocares if there's these like
quote unquote, myofascialrestrictions?
Right, like they clearly likeit, keep going for it.
So, yeah, like I, I don't.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
I'm not the biggest fan of the modality empires,
like you said yeah it's, it'scomplicated things, the a lot of
the those modality ideas andnarratives.
They've complicated manualtherapy like.
They've made it more difficultbecause you have to pal, aid or
do things a specific way.
There's a lot of rulesassociated with them.
Exactly exactly creates, I feel, creates um a barrier to your

(51:14):
kind of creativity or puts avery linear process in your
thinking, rather than you know amore creative kind of whole.
I don't know, he's just aholistic but entire person kind
of approach.
Right, we, we often would justfocus with our modalities as
like just this very specific way, exactly, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
And again, like as a massage therapist, I just feel
like there's so much more we canoffer patients than just what
we do with our hands.
Like the entire appointment isis the treatment, and not just
whenever they're on the table,like just simply listening to
what they're going through.
Especially when they say likeoh yeah, like my doctor said,
like I can't do this anymore.

(51:56):
My physio told me that.
Like my back is weak and youjust going yeah, that sucks, how
do you feel about that isalready part of treatment.
Like I've had some appointmentswhere the first half hour, like
we haven't even talked abouttheir pain.
They're just talking to meabout their day and like I I
didn't really know how to likeum segue into like oh yeah, so

(52:16):
how's, how's that pain comingalong?
Like they don't like that, likethey just want to talk, right,
and they really enjoyed it.
I've had some massages where inmy head I'm like this is the
worst massage I've given anyone.
This is so terrible, but I wasjust listening to them the
entire time and they genuinelyloved it.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
And there's.
I believe there is.
Well, I'm sure there is, I justcan't quote any off the top of
my head.
So I you know it's a I'm makinga statement without any
evidence right now, but I knowthere is some stuff I've read
out there which, yeah, whichsuggests that you know doesn't,
whether it's manual therapy,massage therapy, whether it's,
you know, medical doctors,whether it's psychologists,

(52:55):
social workers, you know, themore connected people feel with
you, the better their outcomeswill tend to be, or reported
outcomes will tend to be.
I should say so for us, as amassage therapist, we're not
dealing necessarily or we're notdealing at all with, you know,
fixing cancer or disease.
We're there just to kind ofsymptom management and

(53:16):
facilitating wellness.
So if the very least we can dois connect with somebody, the
evidence suggests that that isactually the most important
thing.
It doesn't matter what you dowith your hands, as much it's
got to feel exactly, it's got tomeet your expectations, it's
got to help them with, but justconnect with somebody.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Yeah, just help people feel nice, like the
honesty.
That's kind of like my goalwith every appointment now is
just overall, just be anexcellent vibe.
Like if you need someone tolisten to, if you need someone
to rant, to.
Like if you need someone tolisten to, if you need someone
to rant to.
Like if you want someone totalk, if you want to be quiet
while I talk about like I don'tknow, like whatever I cooked for
dinner last night, somethinglike that.
Like whatever you need.
Like if you want to doexercises, I'll do that with you

(53:56):
too.
Yeah, we just have to have somecomponent of massage, but yeah,
yeah, you're still here formassage.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
But you're, you're, you're, you, yeah, you're still
here for massage.
But you're, you're, you're kindof using that environment of
the massage to to connect andcreate a kind of therapeutic
relationship with somebody,which is great.
Exactly, there's nothing.
Yeah, some people might argueand say that that's out of scope
or that's that's not being okay.
But I'm like you know whatwe're supposed to be
evidence-based.
The evidence suggests that'sbetter than just rubbing a piece
of meat on the table.
So let's, let's be, let's begood humans too, right?

Speaker 2 (54:27):
yeah, and it's not like I'm giving them life advice
and telling them what to do,unless it's like specific
lifestyle changes, like, yeah,you should probably go for that
hike.
You know, like I, I don't.
I I still think that's allwithin scope of practice.
We're just listening to peoplestraight up, listening to people
and connecting with them.

Speaker 1 (54:42):
Yeah, that's not that's totally fine, right?
I mean there's, I don't we'reallowed to.
We're allowed to, at least herein bc.
We're allowed to give exercise,we're allowed to give um advice
, as long as with it's in ourscope, like, and movement
exercise is within our scope, sonothing, I think that's.
I mean, that's really goodevidence-based practice there.
Yeah, one thing I just wantedto kind of uh cycle back to it

(55:03):
was, you know you're talkingabout kind of term four, term
five.
You said you were kind offeeling like you were being an
ass and you were burnt out andand you were, you know, you're
being a bit of a probably prettystrong opinions to your
classmates and to yourinstructors.
How did they react to theinformation that you were
bringing to them?

Speaker 2 (55:21):
I think it's some.
It's not really something Ibrought up with a lot of the
instructors Some of them I didtalk about and they were very
supportive of that and those areagain like my favorite
instructors.
They're the ones that werequick to say, like okay, this is
what you have to learn becauseof the board exam, but real life
practice, this is how it'sgoing to be.
Like they were very receptiveof it.

(55:41):
But some of my classmates Iwant to say that like some were
actually going like okay, likethat's not bad, like okay.
Like I've kind of consideredthat a little bit Some of them
were very much well, they werefrustrated as well.
Like I think at some point someof the things that were brought
up, like well, is this reallyhurting someone?
But I do think that some ofthem are actually changing the

(56:06):
perspective too.
Like they're starting torealize like oh, okay, like
maybe Dave was onto somethingthere.
Like they've talked to other,like they've talked to physios
that they work with, like thechiros that they work with, who
kind of echoed the same thing.
Like they're starting to seethose papers, those social media
posts as well, that kind ofagree with what I was trying to

(56:27):
tell them.
So that's nice.
But I definitely have to saythat at some point within school
I kind of felt fairly alone inthat belief.
Except for a few specificpeople that I was talking to,
yeah, but for the most part itwas a lot of like yeah, sure,
dave, we got, we got you, we gotyou, we'll listen to you.
For now, yeah, it goes back to.

(56:50):
I can't really blame them too,because from my understanding,
they weren't really saying thator believing that because they
didn't believe in me, it's more.
Just, they just didn't reallyhave the time or energy anymore
to kind of counter what we werelearning.
And again, I can't really blamethem for that.
Like here's like, like here'ssomething that an rmt who's been

(57:13):
practicing for like five, tenyears is telling you and now
your classmate who's learningthings with you is telling you
no, that person is wrong, youknow.
Like, even if that person givesyou evidence, it's a little bit
of like you know what, let'sjust, let's just finish school
and we'll deal with this lateron down the road.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Yeah, well, I commend you, though I mean it's hard to
kind of stand up and go againstthe status quo and to even
bring in, to be open minded, tolearn those things.
And you know, the fact that youfelt alone but still were able
to kind of, you know, keepwanting to learn, I think says a
lot about your character.
Thank you, yeah, most of us,you know just kind of we wanted

(57:55):
to stay with the comfortableright, stay with the pack and
just you know be, say whateverelse is saying, do whatever else
is doing be part of the norm.
And to stand up and say, hey,you know be, say whatever else
is saying, do whatever else isdoing be part of the norm.
And to stand up and say, hey,you know what.
This doesn't make sense.
This is what I'm reading hereand start to question it and and
ask and present thatinformation to other people and
ask them to question it too.

(58:15):
So it is.
It's not an easy task and Ithink it's great.
You know, like, in connectingwith people like yourself and
others I've been able to connectwith across Canada and across
the world, who are very much onthe same kind of page as you and
I are, and realizing thatthere's a lot of holes in the

(58:36):
profession and in terms of theeducation, in terms of
continuing continuing educationand professional development,
and seeing there's problems inthe schools and the stakeholders
and the associations and thecolleges, you know, and being
able to have these conversationsand just to challenge people,
um, you know, needs to happen,otherwise we're just, we're not
going to grow oh, 100, 100.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
It's just surprising because I there was a part of me
that kind of believed that thiscircle of people that were more
evidence-based was a lot biggerthan it was.
So, coming to actual practiceand talking to other RMTs and
even physios, I'm like, oh, thisis, we are a huge minority here
.
So I do think it is importantto just, at the very least,

(59:19):
start conversation, becausethat's how I got started right,
like I never would have begunlooking into these things if it
wasn't for for your webpage, forfor your podcast.
So it is important, it isimportant.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
No, thanks.
Thanks for that.
I really appreciate that andthat's why I put that stuff out.
There was to just say, hey, youknow, people there's, these are
my thoughts, this is.
This is kind of some, someevidence on these things and,
you know, to try and get peopleto pay attention.
So that's great.
I'm happy to hear that I'vebeen.
When I first did, when I did myfirst ever continuing education
course I taught in 2016, I hadpeople throw things at me and I

(59:58):
had official complaints becauseat the time, the I mean I'll
admittedly like I didn't didn'tdo it.
I probably didn't do a good job.
I probably sucked like well,actually, I know that was shitty
, right, because I didn't reallyknow what I was doing.
I was like here's a bunch ofinformation and you're all wrong
.
I think it's kind of probablyhow it came across.
Um, and I I'm I'm humble, I'lladmit it, like I did I.

(01:00:20):
It took a long time and even now, right, you still do stuff.
You're like I'm trying to bebetter, I'm trying to be less
wrong, but the fact that some ofthe stuff that I was presenting
was completely foreign, becausepeople weren't hearing about
that stuff like they're yeah, itwas, it was new and I wasn't
the only one, but I just I thinkI was, I was the one of the

(01:00:40):
first ones I was willing tostand up and put a course on or
teach people about stuff.
Yeah, that was against thestatus quo, and there's a lot of
years there where people werejust so angry and so upset
because they felt threatened andchallenged.
And, um, you know, it'sencouraging me to see that

(01:01:00):
there's, you know, othergenerations of therapists like
yourself and and others that areout there that are, that are
having these conversations,because that's the only way
we're going to move forward.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
Yeah, it's, it's a slow progress, but it is still
progress regardless.
Yeah, yeah, like, I think thebigger the change, the harder it
is to accept, truthfully, and Ido feel like a lot of what
you're trying to change is ahuge 180 from what people
believe in.
So it's definitely going totake some time, but, um, I do
think that schools have a hugeresponsibility in being better

(01:01:34):
in this aspect because, like yousaid, like as, while people are
still students, while they'restill learning, I think it's the
best time to teach them thatlike, hey, this is how you
should do research, this is howresearch can actually affect
your clinical practice and thisis how you should do research,
this is how research canactually affect your clinical
practice and this is how thingscan change in the future, and
this is why that's okay to learndifferently down the road.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
I love that.
I love that the schools have amassive responsibility, but they
don't want to accept it, and Iknow this from my firsthand
experience that, talking to manyof the schools here, they
always want to pass the buck tosomebody else.
Everyone's pointing a finger ateach other.
Well, we're not going to change, because we have to teach,
because these are therecommended textbooks by the,
the college and you know, andeveryone is just constantly

(01:02:19):
unwilling to accept that.
Maybe you should takeresponsibility, maybe you should
bring a different textbook andmaybe you should educate your
instructors to be moreevidence-based.
Maybe you as a school shouldchange your curriculum a little
bit.
I know it can be done becauseI'm working with a school in
Alberta right now which isunregulated, so they don't have
nearly as many people tellingthem what to do.

(01:02:44):
But I'm very comfortable, I'mvery confident to say that you
can teach a program that's goingto get people to pass a board
exam and make it evidence-based.
Yeah, by putting everything inthe right context.
Yeah, exactly, it's notpossible.
It just takes work and nobodywants to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's just easier to.
Yeah, it's so much easier tokeep the status quo as opposed
to going.
Maybe it's so much easier tokeep the status quo as opposed
to going.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Maybe it's time to be better and that's the
responsibility of the school.
You're an educational institute.
Don't just do what you'vealways done.
Take some responsibility.
Be a leader.
If anyone's listening from theschool, hopefully, hopefully,
you can.
You can change it.
I know it.
It's possible.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
The great thing is, there are, there is, a
generation of instructors thatare trying to be different, but
at the end of the day, they'restill instructors, as opposed to
the entire institution.
Yeah, yeah, but again, progressis slow.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Progress is slow, but progress is progress yeah, and
the thing is too is with theschools is that they don't pay
very well I heard so I mean Idon't know because I don't work
at the school, but if what I'veheard is they don't pay very
well.
So, um, to get an instructorthere, you're probably getting
somebody that's passionate andexcited to do something.
But it's not like a career where, like, say, if you were in

(01:03:56):
university, you'd have a careereducator and researcher, yes,
who their life is dedicated toteaching and researching and
trying to create the bestcontent available for their
students, whereas in massageschool, you know it doesn't pay
very well, it's not a careernecessarily for most people Like
something they kind of do onthe side, is you know something,

(01:04:18):
something extra, rather thanclinical practice, and so you
get it creates a very differentmentality with the instructors.
So there's gonna be some thatare good, but I would love it if
the school said hey, you know,we're going to hire an entire
faculty and your job is tocreate, to research, to
constantly develop and redevelopa new curriculum.
And we're going to, we're goingto work together and this is,

(01:04:43):
and these are the papers we'regoing to use, these are the
textbooks we're going to use,these are the textbooks we're
going to use.
I know it's more expensive, butif you want to create a
world-class curriculum.
That's what you would probablyneed to do.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
You need full-time instructors, and their life was
dedicated to education and anduh, creating content for their
their students, exactly,absolutely, and I mean if we're
going to be standing on the samelevel as physiotherapists, you
know, as as actual clinicians.
Like we definitely need to dosomething better to improve,

(01:05:16):
like we should stop usingtextbooks that are, I don't know
, 20 plus years old actuallysome of the 90s yeah, blows my
mind.
Like some of the things I'veread in some of those textbooks.
I'm like, wow, this is useless.
I'm sorry, but this iscompletely useless.
There's so many things aboutthis was wrong, like being

(01:05:37):
recommended to use certainessential oils, like very
specific amount of essentialoils.
Like what is this?
What is this?

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Yeah, I didn't know that.
I've never seen that.
This, what is this?
Yeah, that's, I didn't knowthat.
I've never, I've never, I'venever seen that in textbook, but
that's crazy yeah, oils yeah Iheard that it's.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
I think I read that it's not really a required
textbook anymore, but I paid 30grand for my education and this
book was one of the main onesused for this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
Program like this is ridiculous yeah, 30 000 is a lot
of money to spend for somethingthat is, you know, that is not
up to date and that's an issuethat a lot of people have, that
I've talked to a lot of studentshave like, I can't wait to
spend all this money for schooland come out of school and I
realized that much of thecontent I learned wasn't
evidence-based.
And now, that being said, isthere's.

(01:06:23):
You know, we're, I know we'rekind of throwing a lot of this
stuff under the bus.
There was a lot of good contentin there and there's a lot of
good things to get from school,but we're, you know, talking
about negativity bias.
We're having a negativity biasof the schooling.
It's kind of a topic of this,this anyway, but yeah, there's.
I think we don't want to say itall sucks, but there's.
There's definitely a lot ofroom for improvement.
There's definitely a lot ofroom for improvement, absolutely

(01:06:44):
, yeah, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
On the overall, I don't regret going to school.
I think I got a lot out of it.
It just so happens that thecertain things that I didn't
like were just very, veryprominent.
Like I definitely have madesome lasting friendships from
that school.
Some of those instructors, I dorecognize them as huge mentors
of mine.
They're huge inspirations ofjust like how to talk to people,

(01:07:05):
like how to how to treat peopleas people as opposed to their
body parts, like I definitelyenjoyed my time in nagara a lot,
a lot more than I did at sfu,for sure, and I was burned out
for both of them.
But, um, yeah, it's just.
But I mean, that's the thing,though it's like part of that
frustration is knowing that theycan be better and you want them

(01:07:25):
to be better, as opposed tobeing frustrated like, oh, I
hated my time there, like Iloved my time there, which is
why I want it to be better,because I know that it does have
that potential that's such agreat point.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
I'm glad you said that too, because you wouldn't
complain about something, or youwouldn't be.
Maybe we're complaining, Idon't know.
You wouldn't be critical ofsomething if you didn't want it
to be better, if you didn't care.
You're like I don't flippingcare what the hell they do.
Then you're probably just goingto just leave it alone.
But exactly, critical.
We're having theseconversations, we're asking
these questions, we're makingthese statements because we want
things to be better, becauseyou exactly, exactly, yeah, and

(01:08:00):
then that's that's.
I hope people are listening,that's they get that.
They get that.
That it's.
It's a matter of not justbecause we want to feel like
complaining is because we knowthat things could be better and
there is ways for things to bebetter.
The schools just need to takethat responsibility amongst
other stakeholders, but I thinkthe schools are the first ones
that need to do that yes,especially because every rmt has
to go through school, rightthat's the one thing they got to

(01:08:21):
do yeah so you have yourundergrad, you've you've been an
rmt for six months.
What are kind of some of yourfuture directions for education
or professional development?
What are you looking to do next?

Speaker 2 (01:08:32):
oh, I definitely at some point want to get a
master's.
Um, that's definitely somethingI'm looking into, but that's
more like down the road.
I really want to have just asmuch clinical practice and just
see as many people as possible.
There's like all types ofdifferent conditions.
Like I love working with peoplewith chronic pain.
I do think that I can be a lotmore supportive in that sense

(01:08:53):
when I kind of just don't breakit down to specific anatomy with
them.
It's more just like, yeah, likewhat, what things can you do
with your life right now and howcan we really make sure that
you're having a very fulfillinglife?
Like I love working with thosetypes of patients, so tend to
see a lot of like icbc.
Um, I just want to take a lot ofcourses.
Truthfully, like I just want tokeep on learning.
Um, yeah, it would be great tobe an instructor one day as well

(01:09:14):
, but hopefully when I'm morefinancially secure, I have a
little bit more stability andI'm not working six days a week
as an rmt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's justso many things I just I want to
do.
Like I want to do thingsoutside of being an RMT as well.
Like a lot of things.
I just started my social mediapage.
I do plan on putting out morecontent as well.

(01:09:37):
Like, right now it's prettymuch blank.
But yeah, yeah Do you want to.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
Why don't you give everybody a plug for your
Instagram page If you want tosee it?
Do you want to?
What's?
Why don't you give everybody aplug for your instagram page if
you want to see it?
So maybe we'll get some morefollowers when this goes live
hopefully, hopefully.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Yeah, it's pretty bad right now, but it's just
davermt at instagram and I'mactually surprised that was
available too.
But as a friend's suggestion,um, shout out to him davermt.
Yeah, nice and simple.
That's so simple, right,completely surprised that's
available.
But, um, yeah, like the contentI'm planning on putting out
there is just more directedtowards patients as opposed to

(01:10:12):
clinicians, but hopefully thatinspires other people to kind of
have a much more positivedirection towards how they treat
people and, again, like notseeing them as cars but seeing
them as people to help, asopposed to people to fix.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
Yeah, a lot of us and myself I included like we.
We focus a lot of our contenton other rmts, but there is a
huge component, there's a largercomponent of the public yes,
more so than rmt.
So I think that that's great,that you're looking to develop
content out there and hopefullyget some followers that will
listen or see what you have tosay and hopefully they'll be
able to influence them in apositive way to make good, good

(01:10:51):
decisions about absolutely,absolutely, yeah, yeah that's
great.
Well, thanks, dave, for thisconversation today.
I really enjoyed that.
That was a lot of fun.
I appreciate you so much timefrom your three jobs and your
seven to eight work week to talkto me for an hour and a bit
here.
I really appreciate that.
So reach out to dave.
Uh, you can be found onInstagram at Dave RMT.
It's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
Perfect.
Thank you so much, eric.
That was great talking with you.
You too, dave, thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
Thank you for listening.
If you enjoyed this episode,please give it a five star
rating and share it on socialmedia.
You can follow me on Instagramor Facebook at Eric Purvis RMT,
and please head over to mywebsite, ericpurviscom to see a
full listing of all my livecourses, webinars and
self-directed course options.
If you want to connect withDave, please search for him on

(01:11:39):
Instagram at davermt.
So until next time.
Thanks for listening.

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