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

Meet Dave Cordoviz, a new Registered Massage Therapist, in Vancouver, BC. Dave discusses the invaluable lessons he'd learn while juggling work at multiple clinics while working at his family's Filipino restaurant. This episode shares insights from Dave's journey towards establishing a successful RMT practice.

Navigating the labyrinth of healthcare education can be complex. We dissect the heart of massage therapy education itself—contrasting the atmosphere of RMT school settings with that of university, and unraveling the threads of clinical relevance into an outdated curriculum. We examine the educational landscape with a call for an evidence-based approach that benefits both aspiring therapists and future clients.

Dave and I share stories from our educational journey's, advocating for a shift towards curricula that arm therapists with more than just textbook knowledge. This episode is another push for Eric to challenge the status quo, and weaving a new narrative for the future of massage therapy education—one where adaptability, patient empowerment, and the strength of community are at the core. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hello and welcome to another episode of Purvus Versus. My name is Eric Purvus. I'm a massage therapist, course creator, continuing education provider, curriculum advisor and advocate for evidence-based massage therapy. In this episode, we welcome Dave Kordovas, who is a new RMT in Vancouver, bc. Dave and I have an engaging discussion on his journey through RMT school and what it has been like growing a practice. Dave shares with us his thoughts and feelings about what he appreciated in massage school, 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 media platforms. You can also support my podcast by making a donation at buymeacoffeecom slash helloob. Purpose Versus can also be found on YouTube, so please check us out there and subscribe. So thanks for being here and I hope you enjoy this episode.

Speaker 1: 0:58

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Purpose Versus. I'm excited here to have Dave. Is it Cordova's? Is that how you pronounce your last name? Absolutely yes, dave Cordova's, who is a relatively new RMT practicing at numerous locations in throughout the lower mainland in BC. So he's here today just to talk to us a little bit more about kind of his experience of being a student and what it's like being a new grad and building a practice, and you know the kind of learning journey that we go through 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 to give us some insight into what his personal experience is like. So before we start, dave, today, just tell us a little bit about you.

Speaker 2: 1:36

Yeah, so my name is Dave. I'm a recent grad. I've been practicing for about six months now. I finished a board exam 2022. I'm currently practicing in three different clinics. I really wanted to get myself busy and just really engross myself into the RMT world.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Nice, so three clinics. So are you working like, do you get any time off or do you sleep in the office?

Speaker 2: 2:04

No, no, no. Actually, actually, to be honest, right now I'm currently working seven days a week, but I'm actually gonna decrease one day, because I also work at my family's restaurant too. Oh, really, yes, yeah what's your? Family side, though it's like a small 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: 2:26

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: 2:32

Yes, fairly known within the Filipino community, but it'd be great to have more people there. Actually.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Perfect, all right, sounds good. Well, next time I'm in I'm in the 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 have a. I don't know if we even have a filipino restaurant here on the island yeah I don't?

Speaker 2: 2:54

I don't think so. We do get a number of customers within like vancouver island. They're like oh yeah, we're from the island. We love you guys yeah, yeah, we're fans, we're fans, yeah excellent, excellent.

Speaker 1: 3:06

So the three clinics here are they? Um, how many hours are you working at each clinic, like? That's like seven days a week as an RMT? I'm sure a lot of people are listening, thinking this guy's freaking crazy like, but you're new, right? You got to pay off your debts and you got to build a practice, so we're willing to sacrifice a little bit. But uh, like, how many hours are you working every day on average, like seeing clients?

Speaker 2: 3:28

yeah, so I'm starting to get a lot busier now. I'm actually only working six days 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 in right now is my main one. This is called aries physiotherapy. This one I work oh hard to say. I'm available like nine to four and then ten to seven and then 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'm getting about 20 to 25 hands-on hours per week on average these days, and then I'm getting about high twenties to like low thirties patients per week.

Speaker 1: 4:11

Oh, that's pretty good. That's pretty good, yeah, yeah. So you haven't really found it difficult then to build a practice. Like in six months you're pretty full, I would more so than not.

Speaker 2: 4:22

Yeah, fairly busy actually. Especially, I've I've heard from a lot of people that as a guy it tends to start off a little bit slower. I did find that January, february that was kind of the case. But the new clinic I'm working at, the one in Burnaby, it's close by a hospital so I tend to get a lot of repeat patients there With this clinic working with ICBC patients a lot, lot, which I definitely enjoy. I get a fair bit of consistent patients as well too. Yeah, yeah. But I I'd like to think that I like 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 them that opportunity or like that desire to come back right, yeah, well you're doing something right, always if people are, if people are coming back and they're happy, right, that's usually the yeah thing.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Right if it's the one and done person. You know happens sometimes. But if you're getting a lot of repeats from referrals and and to be to be full early on, it is great. Uh, I'm not really sure what it's like throughout the rest of the country, but I know here in bc, particularly in the vancouver island in the lower mainland, it seems like most people I talk to are it's pretty easy to build a practice. It was. Is that the case with a lot of your classmates too? Like, have you found that they've been able to build a practice pretty easily?

Speaker 2: 5:32

oh, I find that it's actually so different. Um, the people that work in within the Vancouver proper or Vancouver city itself, they tend to be very busy like immediately, like I know one person who was telling me, I think a few months ago she was already hitting like 30 people. Some people have like wait lists already, but then some of my other friends they're also available five, six days a week but then they're getting about 17, 18 patients per week. So it really depends. Yeah, I find that as you get closer to the suburbs it's a little bit harder. There's a fair bit of rmts now, I find, yeah, especially working in multidisciplinary clinics.

Speaker 1: 6:15

So yeah, well, it's funny, when I went to school 20 years ago now, the there was, I think there was about 1300, 1200 rmts in bc and now there's like I think there's almost 6,000.

Speaker 1: 6:27

Yeah, Crazy 20 years of it was at a five-fold increase in therapists. It's, it's crazy. And there and the thing is is I remember when I was in school and the 1200, we were, I remember being told by some of our instructors who said things like the market's saturated, you're a male, you're going to struggle. And the market's saturated, you're a male, you're going to struggle. And I remember being so scared and and you know what. But people have been saying the same thing forever and I don't know how true that is, because most of the whether you're male or female, you're most people tend to be pretty busy. You know, more or less, um, at least here in BC, and um, you know, they, they keep saying that the market's saturated but they keep adding more therapists out there and they keep people keep, you know, filling their practices. So I don't know, I don't know if there's much to be said with all those kind of scare tactics and fear mongering. I think is some of the things. That. That's what I felt. Anyway, I felt scared.

Speaker 2: 7:21

Yeah, I really don't know, Because when I was first looking at clinics, there were some clinics that have 22 RMTs. It's wild. But then a lot of those people are 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 looking for a new RMT because the one she normally sees. She hasn't been able to see him for over a year now. So hard to say. Yeah, hard to say. Hard to say.

Speaker 1: 7:49

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 there and make a living pretty, pretty quick, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 7:58

But yeah, it's it's.

Speaker 1: 7:59

That's good. I'm happy, that's good. I'm impressed to hear that. Uh, so I just wanted curious about your. You don't have to tell me where you went to school unless you want to. Um, I'm just kind of curious about your experience as an RMT student. Can you tell us a little bit about, like, just what was your experience? Did you like it? Just like it yeah.

Speaker 2: 8:18

So regarding that, I feel like it's such a split. I definitely enjoyed my time at my school. I went to Langara. It was different from my past experience because I have a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology from SFU and my experience from that school was very, very different from Langara.

Speaker 2: 8:39

I was coming in with an experience in having 400 people in one class. I was coming in from with an experience in having like 400 people in one class, but in Lingara we have at most two dozen and I think by the end of the program we had about like 18, 19 people. So I really enjoyed the aspect of closeness I was able to get with my classmates, with my friends, as well as just getting to really know the instructors and asking them how their practice is like, what are some things that they do to kind of like better themselves as clinicians, like how do they take care of themselves. So I thought that was a really nice experience. To have instructors actually know your name. To me was such an unusual concept too, and I definitely appreciated that, and a few of my other friends who also came from like UBC or SFU basically had the same thought process as well, where it was such a closer knit sort of experience as a student yeah, it's part of a community, right like when you go to massage school.

Speaker 2: 9:35

It's like you get this kind of sense of community because you already know as everybody, and it's almost like a little bit of everyone becomes a little bit of a family or extended family exactly yeah, and that's definitely something that I do appreciate um a lot more closeness, yeah yeah yeah, but, um, that said, there were certain things about school that I wasn't really the biggest fan of, like I don't want to throw, like you said, like I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but yeah, I mean, I tend to be, I like to think that I'm a very opinionated person, unfortunately, but um, that's why I wanted you on here, Dave.

Speaker 2: 10:06

Yeah, there's certain things I didn't really like in terms of like the subject that is that we were learning, or just certain classes that made me go like was there ever really a point in this Cause? Like I didn't really see the relevance 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 there were certain classes which I think was I still think is weird is, for example, we took a nutrition course which, yeah, that took about like three or four classes which in my, in my head, I'm like I thought we're not allowed to talk about nutrition at all as RMT, so why are we taking this? Or certain science. I mean, it's hard to say, like it's good, I find that it's a good idea to really learn about anatomy and physiology, but then, to a certain extent, some of the detail that we did learn is a little bit like, well, it's not really relevant to clinical practice. Because one of the things that I was, that I I kind of figured out about RMT school is that they constantly tell you how hard it is.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Like that I was, that I I kind of figured out about RMT school is that they constantly tell you how hard it is. Like that's something that everyone says like, oh, it's so hard, you're going to be burnt out, you're going to be exhausted and, honestly, that's absolutely true. But I think that there were certain things that they could have done to make the program a little bit easier or at least more concentrated towards actual clinical practice. Right, a lot of filler, yeah, yeah, and I feel like having filler is not necessarily bad. But I think there were other courses we could have taken, or certain courses we could have taken 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 when people are, because one thing I'm a big advocate for is like changing the curriculum or updating the curriculum, making it more evidence-based, and ideally for me, I would love to see it in the university system, but that's like a, that's a lofty dream. Who knows if that's going to happen? But I've heard so many times from so many different organizations and associations and schools, is that, well, we, we, we can't, we can't increase the length of the program, and I and I think, well, you don't necessarily. If you were going to keep it in a private school like it is now, you don't need to lengthen the program necessarily, although I think it'd be great, but there's so much stuff in there that you don't even need to learn about that. Why don't you add that on to something, like you said, more clinically relevant, like you're talking, um, like nutrition, like it's not even our scope of practice.

Speaker 1: 12:33

Is it good to know something about nutrition? Maybe, but is that like, do you need that in your, in your, in your schooling? Probably not, that's. You know 10, 12, 15 hours of schooling that you could put on something else. Do we need to know the details of, like, cell division and the reproductive system, or like, embryological development of different tissues? That stuff's kind of interesting, but is it something that you need to know for your entry to level practice? Like, is it? You know how much detail do you need in those things? And if I look back at the stuff I learned in school, I think there's so much stuff we learned that was just totally unnecessary and I would have loved to learn more kind of clinical applicable skills, exactly.

Speaker 2: 13:15

Exactly. Yeah, no, I completely agree. Like I don't think therapeutic exercise was really emphasized enough, like I don't think it was emphasized enough on how to, how to listen to patients, how to talk to patients. You know, like yes, we learned pathology, but then how does pathology actually look like within a clinical setting? Like we did gloss over it a couple times so we didn't really go in depth about it. Yeah, and I think that I, I totally.

Speaker 1: 13:42

I love that. You said it too about the pathology. I mean, I totally agree with everything you're saying here. So it's a bit of an echo chamber, but that's okay. That's what we're here for, right?

Speaker 1: 13:50

yeah, that's what we're here for, yeah, just to tell each other, we're right, um is, and that's one thing. That that, um, I'd be curious and I probably know the answer. But I'm just going to make an assumption here is that you learn about pathologies, and when I was in school 20 years ago it was the same thing. You learn about these pathologies, but then when you don't really learn about how that impacts your clinical practice or what, what it is that you would expect or would be kind of best practices with to work with that population, for example, a simple one would be like osteoarthritis, yeah, you know, what does that present? Like, um, what are kind of some assessments to see the severity of the? You know the region, whether it's knee, hip, spine, shoulder, neck, whatever, uh, and then what would be kind of like what's the best recommendations for for treatment in home care?

Speaker 1: 14:36

Right, so, obviously, massage. There's only so many ways you can massage, but there's all the other stuff that's within our scope of practice, right, like about, you know, load management or progressive loading, or, um, you know, uh rather than like. At least the way I remembered it was like someone's got osteoarthritis and then, okay, these are some of the things that you will see, and then it was basically just like massage them and get them to like do these stretches and strengthening things. It was so. It was so vague that I never felt comfortable with any of the pathology stuff in terms of really having a solid understanding. So you think that you could they could go into so much more detail on that. It would be so much better for everybody, 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're learning about rheumatoid arthritis, like certain contraindications, but how do we actually get someone who has osteoarthritis to feel better, to actually live life, as opposed to let's just give you a nice massage and then that's it. And I think from my understanding, from my classmates, it's also one of the biggest things is we didn't really know how to treatment plan. We know how to give someone a nice massage for one appointment and then after that it's just like, oh, what now? And I think that's part of also why a lot of newer clinicians aren't really that busy, because we just don't know how. Like I had to ask a lot of other rmt's, I had to ask a lot of physios like, what do you do? Like, how do you do this? Like, how do you tell people to come back? Like how, how do you actually make 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 to something you touched on earlier, I think, which was you were talking about like communication and how to like talk to people and how to, you know, connect and build that therapeutic alliance, and which is, you know, that's a very difficult skill to learn and where it's hard to do. But if you this is my experience here is that if you learn how to talk and listen to people and just be more present with them, it makes a much easier treatment plan, because they kind of tell you what it is they want to do. Yes, absolutely. They become a. Be more present with them. It makes a much easier treatment plan because they kind of tell you what does they want to do?

Speaker 2: 16:46

Yes, absolutely. They become a lot more comfortable with you. They start realizing like, oh, I can actually tell this person something and they'll pay attention, 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 tell someone. Yeah, you should go strengthen it.

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 know that the the argument is often entry to level practice, like we're trying to teach people to be safe, um, and effective and ethical. And, yeah, maybe you're being safe like someone comes to see you that has some type of pathology and you're, maybe you're not making them worse, but are you really being effective with them?

Speaker 1: 17:33

exactly maybe, but and you probably, you're probably the very least you're hopefully not making them worse. But how can you be most effective with them, which, which is the thing that from the other RMTs I've I talked to and relatively new grads that I've been doing these series of episodes on, and that's kind of the this there's an overlying theme there is they just don't feel quite ready to take this information and apply it to practice to be most effective or more effective. It's just like don't hurt people, watch out for these things and just give them a nice massage. Well, yeah, that's, that's like the very lowest common denominator. I would like to think that we should want to reach higher from our, our education. Right, obviously, we're going to keep learning as we, as we uh develop and as we we grow as therapists, but you'd think that just pumping people through the schooling 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 have to do this to pass the board exam. This like extremely difficult hurdle that everyone has to go through. Then after that, yeah, you're free, you have free reign to learn whatever. But then it's frustrating because you know you're paying so so much money, you're going through so much mental stress, emotional stress, your time is dedicated to passing a board exam as opposed to actually dedicated to being a better clinician.

Speaker 1: 18:54

I think at the, at its essence, that's what was most frustrating yeah, and that was that was actually one thing I wanted to talk to you about too, did you? Did you find that that was the kind of overarching emphasis of the program was just to pass the exams, or was that kind of? Do you have some instructors that were willing to kind of give you a bit more in addition to then to the basic base knowledge you need to pass the exams?

Speaker 2: 19:18

Yes, absolutely so. I think as a program, the goal is to get as much people passing the board exam as possible, and I do see the business side of that. But the great thing is there were some instructors that were very honest about certain things, such as I had some instructors that would say like okay, this is probably what's going to be like in the board exam, but if you're looking at actual real life clinical practice, this is not going to be the case. This is what you should look out for, this is what you should be doing, and those are basically my favorite instructors.

Speaker 1: 19:47

Yeah, yeah, the ones that kind of put the extra effort into like impart their clinical 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't really blame the school for that. I can't really blame those other 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 an abort exam. I feel like at some point there's a lot of like checking off, like yeah, like taking off check boxes, essentially like, oh, this person can do this, this, this is this, but then again we're not really looking into 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 have to get your license to practice and to you know for people to come pay you and you know claim insurance. But the good, the focus should be on creating good clinicians, because a good clinician will pass 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 I just feel like it didn't need to be that hard right it could, they could have made it in a more more applicable, more practical but not so difficult, with the wasted time on things that weren't really exactly.

Speaker 2: 21:05

Exactly Because at that point, as a student, admittedly, at some point you kind of just don't care anymore. At that point, you just care about 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 actually not that far. They're not that different. So with SFU we definitely went into a lot more detail, to the point of we were just straight memorizing something, whereas for RMT school, admittedly because it is shorter, we just went over like a wider grasp of things. But I remember being impressed, like okay, like this is pretty legitimate information, like I remember reading this. I remember I recognized this, I recognized that, so I thought that was great. Um, I do have to say, specifically for Lengare, at least the MSAC course was significantly better taught than it was at SFU. I think SFU was a lot of just like memorizing. Whereas our instructors Langer was very good at actually explaining to us the concept, it basically became a like a language course. We were learning like how, like yeah, like, for example, like brevis brevis means short, so anything that involved the word brevis is just a shorter muscle and it's usually intrinsic, so like little things like that was very helpful. Yeah, yeah. So I like that part of the learning?

Speaker 1: 22:31

Yeah, yeah, I did. When I did my undergrad a long time ago now in the 90s it was I did. I did anatomy and physiology component of my, of my program and I remember being extremely just not, it was just memorizing, it wasn't nothing applicable to it. So it was much easier, I found when you go into the massage program to learn your MSK particularly uh, it made it was much easier because you're like, oh, this is, this is what these things do, and you're able to touch them and palpate them and move them around. So you kind of had that, just that. It was rather than just as like visual learning. There's a little bit of kinesthetic and applicable stuff with it too, which made a lot easier yes, exactly, exactly the fact that.

Speaker 2: 23:15

So we did the lecture part and then, like a day later, we did the actual palpation part, so that one is really nice, or just like I. I found that I wasn't really memorizing the muscle actions anymore. I was just looking at like, okay, this is the origin, this is the insertion, what would be the logical movement here, if this pulls from this direction? So that was a perspective that I didn't really see at sfu and I really enjoyed that from laguerre yeah that's great, that's great.

Speaker 1: 23:42

What about things like evidence-based practice? Because this is something you at least when I was in university, everything was like evidence-based, evidence-based. And then you go to massage school and those terms, at least around the school, were never used. Was that stuff ever brought up to you with you Like this is evidence-based, or was it just nothing there?

Speaker 2: 24:00

Well, this is kind of where it starts getting hard to say, because, definitely, going to a university, there's a huge emphasis on actual evidence-based practice or not evidence-based practice, but just being or just looking into good research, like we were taught on how to look at. Oh, what makes research bad? What makes research biased? What makes up a study? What are the components of the, the study, why would this be more relevant to others? Why would this not be applicable for real life? And why would that be applicable for real life?

Speaker 2: 24:30

And I thought that that was really great. We were taught to logically think over everything, like we shouldn't just hear a claim and go like, okay, that sounds about right and it's more just, like I really emphasize on what are the sources for this claim, like what proof does that person have? And that was great at SFU and unfortunately, I don't necessarily think that that was something that I saw in Lingara as a program. Individual instructors were definitely a lot better about it, but I just felt like the narratives of certain modalities were so pushed through Like they would talk about evidence supporting those narratives, but what about evidence that would go against those narratives, which, as far as I understand, is just as important, if not more 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 this for a bit here.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Now is the you know, you go to school and you're taught these things and you're taught and you're shown that there's evidence, but you're only ever seeing one side of the evidence. And if you have the, the knowledge or skills, you can often look at that and be like there's something doesn't quite fit right with these. Claims are being made by and does this paper say what you think this modality is supposed to be doing? Like? And all of a sudden, there's big, 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 on there in this paper people have fas, I'm just going to throw this out there In this paper people have fascia, and so therefore, that means that when we do these things on people's hands, that we're releasing this specific fascia. Well, it doesn't say that in those papers. Like, people will take these anatomical papers, yeah, and then they'll use that to support a claim for a modality. Oh, yes, people have cerebral spinal fluid.

Speaker 2: 26:29

So, therefore, when we put our hands on people's heads, we are manually manipulating cerebral spinal fluid, and then people make those kind of claims, you're like, well, that's not what that research says, exactly, exactly, and that's I do think that that's part of my um, part of like my hang-ups on when we started learning those things, because initially I was like all in on a lot of these things, like okay, like it sounds pretty legit, sounds pretty good.

Speaker 2: 26:45

But then at some point around sem four, sem five, there were certain claims that were being made in some of these classes that made me go like, wait a minute, I don't, I don't really think that makes a lot of sense and it just kept on going. And I think that's where a lot of my personal frustration started coming from. Because, yeah, honestly, I don't even think a lot of these classes gave in examples of papers and why they would and why those narratives quote unquote make sense. It's more just like okay, this is my theory and, um, if I can increase this person's range of motion, that must mean my theory is correct and in my head I'm like but there are so many reasons why someone's range of motion can increase temporarily. You know, like five hours on the road, that range of motion is probably going to be back to normal, but then that's never really addressed. It's very much like a before and after photo, with no real consideration for actual long-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 more comfortable, they will stand upright. So therefore, you've just like realigned and fixed whatever your narrative is here. But then the person goes away and and then, and then, like 10 minutes later, they're. They're sitting standing the way 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's do a little bit of visceral manipulation here. Oh, look, how much more like hip flexion there is now, but you're not really looking at the fact that I can literally turn the light switch off and on and it would do the exact same thing. So, yeah, and that's that's kind of like my sort of personal hang-up about it. Truthfully, it's just we're not really taught to critique ourselves, and I do think that that is extremely important as clinicians that help people, because things can always be better, and I do think it's such an important first step to realize, like, just being humble enough to say like maybe I'm wrong about this and I should try to fix myself if I do find out that I'm wrong about this.

Speaker 1: 28:44

And that's huge.

Speaker 1: 28:45

I like to say that humble is is that we need to realize that we don't know everything and that we're always learning, we're always developing, there's always new knowledge coming around.

Speaker 1: 28:53

But, yeah, when and this is this is one of the biggest problems I see in our profession, and is people are taught these things in school by a well-meaning instructor who is perpetuating an untruthful idea and that then gets taken as fact to say, 15, 20, 30, how many students are in the class and then they go out there and start believing this stuff and then they start telling that information to their colleagues and they start telling that information to their, their patients or their clients, whoever comes to see them, and then it just becomes this kind of this constant perpetuation of, like, incorrect knowledge, and a lot of people are going to listen to this and I've heard me say stuff before. They're like was it doing any harm? I'm like, well, it might. It might for some people, that kind of those beliefs, those understandings, might be harmful, but at the very least, it's wrong. Yes, so should we as a healthcare profession, should we, should we be allowed to be telling people things that have no factual base, unless we could just?

Speaker 1: 29:56

say hey in my opinion or in my experience, this is what I do and this might work. That's, that's part of your clinical experience, as part of the evidence. But we should? I don't think we should be allowed to, and I don't think it should be accepted that we can just tell things to students and then they just are made to believe it and then they go and on and on, have their entire career 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 like you said. I fully agree. It's not it.

Speaker 2: 30:27

I don't see that people are saying these things because they want to take advantage of people.

Speaker 2: 30:32

Not like that at all. I just feel like they haven't really gotten that chance to be countered in their in, in their beliefs, and I do think part of that is because there's such a huge echo chamber of. As a massage therapist, we can do so many things with our hands and the idea that we can't which I'm realizing now is actually such a small minority of people believe that and it's very unfortunate that it's small. But I it sucks to kind of like talk about it to other people too, cause I do also feel like when you bring it up to other people, you're taking it, taking it, or they're taking it, as if you're trying to attack them, but then you're also not. You're just trying to change people's perspectives or just, you know, just trying to be better, essentially trying to know better trying to be less wrong is a term I always like to use exactly yeah, and I do think that's one of the things that we don't really talk about much is that science is not really it's not.

Speaker 2: 31:28

It's not like a group of just like old people deciding like, oh, this is right, this is wrong, like science is a way of looking at things.

Speaker 2: 31:35

It's a way of observing things, and whatever science says now is based out of our current evidence.

Speaker 2: 31:42

Whatever science was saying 20 years ago was based out of that current evidence, and I don't again.

Speaker 2: 31:48

I don't necessarily think that it's wrong that people used to believe those things, but now that we have the ability to know better, I do think that we have a responsibility, like you said, to be better, and we have a responsibility to actually teach patients better, because they've been told for so many years now that so many things are wrong with their bodies that they're going to break down, that they're not, they're not going to be able to like be active anymore, they're not really going to enjoy life like, oh yeah, you're definitely gonna have surgery in a year and honestly, that's for most people that's not true. It's not true and it kind of hurts. It hurts me to hear that from some of my patients too, like being told that, yeah, I can't do squats anymore and I can't go hiking anymore, or I've been told 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 just as 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 have this I don't know what the proper term is, I'm just going to say it's a negativity bias where, as a clinician, we often are taught to think about all the things people can't do or shouldn't do, rather than what are the things that you want to? What things can you do? And in my clinical career, I've seen that all the time where, like you said, people come in and, oh, I'm told I shouldn't play sports again, I shouldn't golf 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 they can't do. And the reason for why they're told they can't do it is usually based on an unsupported premise.

Speaker 1: 33:39

This is what goes back to what we were talking about before, about these claims are just made and passed on from generation to generation of therapists and, whether it's massage therapists or any other allied healthcare professional not supported, can create problems in certain populations of people where they just they're basically told they can't do things.

Speaker 1: 33:50

Oh because, oh yeah, well, if you do this, you're gonna, you know, ruin your joint, or or your your, your tissues are too tight and so, therefore, you know, if you you can't do that, because then they're just going to tighten up again and then you're going to feel that same pain and like there's these stories are made that are, that are so unhelpful, and you know, well-meaning clinicians, I don't think they mean to do it. Everyone wants to help. I would like to think, and I don't think they're taking advantage, but the knowledge is is started, is put into them in school and it's just perpetuated by an industry that just keeps on feeding all the things people can't do rather than trying to empower and that's the biggest problem 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 to just, yeah to just constantly be telling people that, no, you're not going to eat, that life is not going to be okay, when I I do feel like we have such a huge responsibility to teach them what. What things can they do? Okay, like you have this pathology, you have this condition. Well, what things can you enjoy? And maybe, for all you know, maybe there's something that you can do now that can actually progress you to doing something you enjoy that down the road. Like I don't understand why we don't just focus on all like the good things and bring that up to people. We it's, like you said, like we tend to really focus on all the negative things. We don't talk about what things people can do to make their lives better, or like we don't talk 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 up the evidence-based things and people said evidence but they didn't really support it. Did that ever go like? Did they ever talk about critical thinking or any like? Were you ever allowed or encouraged to have discussions about you know any or to be skeptical of what I think you were learning, or was it just learn 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't think we were ever really encouraged, but I don't think it wasn't encouraged to. It's kind of like what I was saying before at that point in schooling, you're just so exhausted that you don't really have energy to to criticize things. You don't really have energy to, um, to question things. At that point you're just like you know what, whatever, I'll just read this, I'll memorize this for now and I'll just pass it class, just so I can make it the next semester, just so I can make it a board exam. And that's part of part of like why I really don't like the fact that it was difficult, like I just didn't think it needed to be. I I greatly, I greatly believe that it would have been so much more beneficial if we had a lot more discussion.

Speaker 2: 36:28

Not every instructor that said like. Some instructors were pretty good at having that discussion, but usually at that point that was already like semester five, semester six out of six. So you're so burnt out like you'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 hear this 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 unfortunate and, yeah, I mean things could be better and that's why that's why I like having these conversations too is because you know, maybe somebody will listen and they'll be like, hey, hey, you know what. They're there, the change is okay. We shouldn't just accept the status quo and we should, like we need to question these things and that's why I mean that's, I don't know, sometimes I feel like I'm I'm screaming into the wind. But yeah, we need to have these conversations so people can start to think, hey, like, look, let's, maybe we can change things in school, maybe we should add this stuff into our program and we can still put out therapists that are going to pass the board exams. It's not, it's not that difficult and, like you just said, right, you get kind of burnt out, making it more difficult. It needs to be when you could focus 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 of felt like it was like a badge of pride, like oh yeah, I passed the board exam. It was so hard. But then, like I would hear stories, like we had one instructor who used to be a nurse and she actually said that her nursing exam was harder than the rmt exam. And that just blows my mind like we, we don't, we can't really kill people as rmts, but as a nurse, right. So why is it like that? Like I don't, I don't, I generally just don't understand it yeah, you probably ask 100 people.

Speaker 1: 38:12

You probably get 100 different answers yeah, yeah, it's just, it is what it is so when you were in school you said you didn't really learn much about evidence-based practice. Did you guys like? Did you get where the like the kind of the current pain science stuff for biopsychosocial frameworks, were those type of things introduced or discussed at all?

Speaker 2: 38:30

definitely was. Those things were brought up like we learned a little bit about um, those receptors, like the anatomy portion of that, but that was also a little bit late. We talked about the biopsychosocial model, but that's another thing where it didn't seem as emphasized as it was. At the end of the day, the whole biomechanical portion was so emphasized like these are the orthopedics. This is the pain, like this type of pain that they would have. This is what you do to massage this. But we didn't really talk about what it means to listen to someone. We didn't really talk about what it means to validate people and just hear them out and it was very much like this is the type of massage you would do for this presentation, as opposed to maybe this person just really needs some quiet time and just a nice feeling massage. Regardless of whatever technique that you use, as long as they like it, as long as they feel great from it, just go for it. Yeah, like that was never really 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 of coaching and helping mindset?

Speaker 2: 39:33

Exactly, exactly. It was like looking at people as 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, is there's still a lot of the programs or most programs out there seem to be that that fix it, the biomechanical, patho-anatomical solution to, to, to everything, and there's a role for that too, but we know that it's in most cases it's that 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 a logistics perspective, that does seem a lot easier to teach, as opposed to like getting the nitty-gritty of, like getting to know people, which can be a lot tougher, like it's just an easier sell to be like oh, if you have great massage techniques, like you can do this, you could do that. Versus you really have to listen to people like you're gonna have to go through some hard topics every now and then.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Yeah, Educating people to be uncertain or to be comfortable in being uncertain is 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 to have the right answer, you're not always going to be the best therapist for that person, is very, very difficult. Yeah and yeah. Telling people that you're not always going to be the best therapist for that person is very, very difficult. Yeah and yeah. Telling people that you're gonna have to be humble is not it's not really a nicest thing to hear.

Speaker 1: 40:53

yeah, I mean, it's great, though, that you, that you, you felt like you had some a decent amount at least introduction to kind of some of the 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 things about langara, though, so, uh, some of the people I've talked to from there have said similar things, so I think that's setting that school up more better than some of the other ones, 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 were becoming a little more skeptical and things weren't really sitting with you, and I think you reached out to me, didn't you? When you were still a student.

Speaker 2: 41:37

Yes, yes, that was actually the first time I messaged you.

Speaker 2: 41:41

I think we were doing the case study and at that point I had already seen on social media a few posts by physiotherapists that started talking about the biopsychosocial model in a lot more detail. They were challenging a lot of the beliefs that I held, coming from massage school, and it kind of started making me look in terms of it started kind of making me look in treatment in terms of more than just the biomechanical aspect, like what does it mean to actually have that psychological aspect or social aspect in terms of taking care of someone and what it means for their chronic pain? So I kind of wanted to look more into that and I asked my case study instructors about it and they kind of referred you to me and I started looking to your information more, like your podcast with Jamie Johnson as well, and it just completely like blew my mind in terms of just like, oh my god, like a lot of these things are making sense, like to me, like this is now actual evidence-based practice as opposed to the very biased we're only going to look at the evidence that supports us type of evidence-based practice, and that just it just kept on going like I started seeing more and more social media posts, I started reading the papers that they were posting, I started talking to other people as well. But, um, yeah, yeah, like, definitely it was.

Speaker 2: 43:01

I think it was semester five. We took one class and, um, a certain claim was made in that class that just made me go like, okay, nope, that's it. I'm done like my brain can't handle this anymore.

Speaker 1: 43:13

And yeah, yeah, but definitely around semester four, when we started doing case studies, is when I got to really be introduced by a psychosocial model and it kind of opened up a whole new path for you to kind of start exploring and, you know, challenging everything must 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. 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 annoying to my friends. I just kept, I just kept basically attacking everything and I I hated that. I was like that. But I just think part of that is burnout too, like the feeling that man, I'm paying so much money for this and what I'm learning is just not real life anymore. And and I felt like I was a little bit duped in a sense, because the first few semesters I fully bought in, like I fully believe that I can sense fascia, like I fully believe that I can like pop it, the si joint rotation, like things like that. And then I was introduced to a lot stronger evidence that made me go like okay, maybe that's not actually the case, which is 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't mean that I don't have value as a clinician, like I can be so much 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 that people 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 it shouldn't be, but it's more of a questioning of ideas, or maybe it's an attack on an idea, but I would say it's a hard questioning of an idea that doesn't have support. So you know, people tend to identify in our profession so much with their modalities and with their narratives behind them. Right, you look at most people's websites, that rmts. They tell you all the techniques 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've helped so many people already in that sense and you've seen people get better and then suddenly a person comes up then goes like you know what the narrative actually doesn't, doesn't match up. Like how would you feel, right? Like to feel like you're probably not going to feel very great or you're probably just going to go like this person doesn't know what they're talking about. Like I've done so much already so it's just, it's a hard, hard topic to talk about. And I feel like it was a little bit easier for me to move on from that because I was still a student, so I haven't really had the years of experience to cement 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 a paper years ago on um kind of some of the barriers and facilitators for rmts uh, being able to use and change their basically use research, evidence and practice and a lot of it and a lot of the. The barriers were that people just weren't taught about the stuff in school, right? So the earlier you're taught about skepticism, the earlier you're taught about the principles of evidence-based practice, the more likely you are to be able to change your beliefs. Later You're more malleable with your beliefs. But if what you learn in school is a very hard, rigid way, the longer you're in practice, usually the harder it is to change your mind. I think the data says something like 60 of people won't change their mind if it challenges what they learned in school.

Speaker 2: 46:53

Oh wow, it's quite significant yeah, yeah, way more than half, yeah, yeah, I feel like that's actually such a just an amazing like small lesson. Just the idea that, hey, this is what we're teaching you now, but this is probably we're teaching you now, but this is probably going to change in the future Like just that little bit of tidbit I feel like is going to do wonders for just like 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 of the current research says. But this is always good, this stuff's always changing, right, and and then just again, that's okay, that's normal. And then that way you're like, oh, okay, so maybe you know I can still do these techniques and I can still, you know, help people, but maybe it's not doing what I think it's doing and maybe I can change my explanation, um, or my understanding, and and that's that's okay.

Speaker 1: 47:42

And then it doesn't mean you're a shitty therapist, it just means, hey, like I'm just changing 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 loved and that's what I practiced for the first, I don't know um, half my practice at least. And then when you start to find stuff that is challenging that and you think, yeah, this makes way more sense than what, than what I thought before. It's hard to unlearn that. And so I know what it's like from both perspectives and trying to help people to or educate people to think differently, but also know what it's like to be the person to unlearn, because it's very difficult yes, yes and see, that's a thing, though, like I don't necessarily believe that there's no space for these modalities.

Speaker 2: 48:30

It's more of just there's no space for the narratives that come with these modalities, like I, I think one in particular, for example, like craniosacral therapy. Like I, I don't necessarily believe there's a time and place to talk about how the uh, what, how the sutures of the skull are very malleable, you can feel cerebral spinal fluid pumping. I don't think that really makes sense. However, if you have a patient with a highly sensitive nervous system, very scared of touch, is in a lot of pain, they're probably going to be benefiting from a series of techniques. That's very soothing and very subtle, right, so it's. And you can basically apply that with literally any other modality that we have. Like we have the ability to help people feel good. Like I don't understand why we don't just capitalize on that.

Speaker 1: 49:20

Yeah, I a hundred percent agree with that. I think that's a great, that's a great way to to, to, to. To summarize all the techniques, right Is that they're just different ways of working with somebody and interacting with somebody. And you know, I strongly feel that we all the different modality camps that are out there, all the different ideas, the different narratives, you know how can one be right and one be wrong?

Speaker 1: 49:44

Exactly, exactly, they're all. They all work the same, the same mechanism. So it's just a different way of interacting with a human and we should just keep it simple and we shouldn't need these multiple certification levels for for these things and and um, I, yeah, I, I find that a lot of those, those modality empires, they're a good business, but they're not necessarily always in the best interest of the therapist or 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 focusing on the specifics and how to do these modalities, you kind of you limit yourself to how often you can use this. You know, like I feel like if you kind of stop looking at it as I'm going to do myofascial because this person has like a fascial restriction, if you look at it instead as this person probably likes myofascial techniques and you try it out on them and they like it, who cares if there's these like quote unquote, myofascial restrictions? Right, like they clearly like it, 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's complicated things, the a lot of the those modality ideas and narratives. They've complicated manual therapy like. They've made it more difficult because you have to pal, aid or do things a specific way. There's a lot of rules associated with them. Exactly exactly creates, I feel, creates um a barrier to your kind of creativity or puts a very linear process in your thinking, rather than you know a more creative kind of whole. I don't know, he's just a holistic but entire person kind of approach. Right, we, we often would just focus 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 can offer patients than just what we do with our hands. Like the entire appointment is is 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 like oh yeah, like my doctor said, like I can't do this anymore. My physio told me that. Like my back is weak and you just going yeah, that sucks, how do you feel about that is already part of treatment.

Speaker 2: 52:04

Like I've had some appointments where the first half hour, like we haven't even talked about their pain. They're just talking to me about their day and like I I didn't really know how to like um segue into like oh yeah, so how's, how's that pain coming along? Like they don't like that, like they just want to talk, right, and they really enjoyed it. I've had some massages where in my head I'm like this is the worst massage I've given anyone. This is so terrible, but I was just listening to them the entire time and they genuinely loved it.

Speaker 1: 52:34

And there's. I believe there is. Well, I'm sure there is, I just can't quote any off the top of my head. So I you know it's a I'm making a statement without any evidence right now, but I know there is some stuff I've read out there which, yeah, which suggests that you know doesn't, whether it's manual therapy, massage therapy, whether it's, you know, medical doctors, whether it's psychologists, social workers, you know, the more connected people feel with you, the better their outcomes will tend to be, or reported outcomes will tend to be. I should say so for us, as a massage therapist, we're not dealing necessarily or we're not dealing at all with, you know, fixing cancer or disease. We're there just to kind of symptom management and facilitating wellness. So if the very least we can do is connect with somebody, the evidence suggests that that is actually the most important thing. It doesn't matter what you do with your hands, as much it's got to feel exactly, it's got to meet your expectations, it's got to help them with, but just connect with somebody.

Speaker 2: 53:34

Yeah, just help people feel nice, like the honesty. That's kind of like my goal with every appointment now is just overall, just be an excellent vibe. Like if you need someone to listen to, if you need someone to rant, to. Like if you need someone to listen to, if you need someone to rant to. Like if you want someone to talk, if you want to be quiet while I talk about like I don't know, like whatever I cooked for dinner last night, something like that. Like whatever you need. Like if you want to do exercises, I'll do that with you too. Yeah, we just have to have some component of massage, but yeah, yeah, you're still here for massage.

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 kind of using that environment of the massage to to connect and create a kind of therapeutic relationship with somebody, which is great. Exactly, there's nothing. Yeah, some people might argue and say that that's out of scope or that's that's not being okay. But I'm like you know what we're supposed to be evidence-based. The evidence suggests that's better than just rubbing a piece of meat on the table. So let's, let's be, let's be good 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 all within scope of practice. We're just listening to people straight 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're allowed to. We're allowed to, at least here in bc. We're allowed to give exercise, we're allowed to give um advice, as long as with it's in our scope, like, and movement exercise is within our scope, so nothing, I think that's. I mean, that's really good evidence-based practice there. Yeah, one thing I just wanted to kind of uh cycle back to it was, you know you're talking about kind of term four, term five. You said you were kind of feeling like you were being an ass and you were burnt out and and you were, you know, you're being a bit of a probably pretty strong opinions to your classmates and to your instructors. How did they react to the information that you were bringing to them?

Speaker 2: 55:21

I think it's some. It's not really something I brought up with a lot of the instructors Some of them I did talk about and they were very supportive of that and those are again like my favorite instructors. They're the ones that were quick to say, like okay, this is what you have to learn because of the board exam, but real life practice, this is how it's going to be. Like they were very receptive of it. But some of my classmates I want to say that like some were actually going like okay, like that's not bad, like okay. Like I've kind of considered that a little bit Some of them were very much well, they were frustrated as well. Like I think at some point some of the things that were brought up, like well, is this really hurting someone? But I do think that some of them are actually changing the perspective too. Like they're starting to realize like oh, okay, like maybe Dave was onto something there. Like they've talked to other, like they've talked to physios that they work with, like the chiros that they work with, who kind of echoed the same thing. Like they're starting to see those papers, those social media posts as well, that kind of agree with what I was trying to tell them. So that's nice.

Speaker 2: 56:30

But I definitely have to say that at some point within school I kind of felt fairly alone in that belief. Except for a few specific people that I was talking to, yeah, but for the most part it was a lot of like yeah, sure, dave, we got, we got you, we got you, we'll listen to you. For now, yeah, it goes back to. I can't really blame them too, because from my understanding, they weren't really saying that or believing that because they didn't believe in me, it's more. Just, they just didn't really have the time or energy anymore to kind of counter what we were learning. And again, I can't really blame them for that. Like here's like, like here's something that an rmt who's been practicing for like five, ten years is telling you and now your classmate who's learning things with you is telling you no, that person is wrong, you know. Like, even if that person gives you evidence, it's a little bit of like you know what, let's just, let's just finish school and we'll deal with this later on 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 against the status quo and to even bring in, to be open minded, to learn those things. And you know, the fact that you felt alone but still were able to kind of, you know, keep wanting to learn, I think says a lot about your character. Thank you, yeah, most of us, you know just kind of we wanted to stay with the comfortable right, stay with the pack and just you know be, say whatever else 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 is doing 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 here and start to question it and and ask and present that information to other people and ask them to question it too. So it is.

Speaker 1: 58:17

It's not an easy task and I think it's great. You know, like, in connecting with people like yourself and others I've been able to connect with across Canada and across the world, who are very much on the same kind of page as you and I are, and realizing that there's a lot of holes in the profession and in terms of the education, in terms of continuing continuing education and professional development, and seeing there's problems in the schools and the stakeholders and the associations and the colleges, you know, and being able to have these conversations and 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 this circle of people that were more evidence-based was a lot bigger than it was. So, coming to actual practice and talking to other RMTs and even physios, I'm like, oh, this is, we are a huge minority here. So I do think it is important to just, at the very least, start conversation, because that's how I got started right, like I never would have begun looking into these things if it wasn't for for your webpage, for for your podcast. So it is important, it is important.

Speaker 1: 59:32

No, thanks. Thanks for that. I really appreciate that and that's why I put that stuff out. There was to just say, hey, you know, people there's, these are my thoughts, this is. This is kind of some, some evidence on these things and, you know, to try and get people to pay attention. So that's great. I'm happy to hear that I've been.

Speaker 1: 59:49

When I first did, when I did my first ever continuing education course I taught in 2016, I had people throw things at me and I had official complaints because at the time, the I mean I'll admittedly like I didn't didn't do 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 really know what I was doing. I was like here's a bunch of information and you're all wrong. I think it's kind of probably how it came across. Um, and I I'm I'm humble, I'll admit it, like I did I.

Speaker 1: 1:00:20

It took a long time and even now, right, you still do stuff. You're like I'm trying to be better, I'm trying to be less wrong, but the fact that some of the stuff that I was presenting was completely foreign, because people weren't hearing about that stuff like they're yeah, it was, it was new and I wasn't the only one, but I just I think I was, I was the one of the first ones I was willing to stand up and put a course on or teach people about stuff. Yeah, that was against the status quo, and there's a lot of years there where people were just so angry and so upset because they felt threatened and challenged. And, um, you know, it's encouraging me to see that there's, you know, other generations of therapists like yourself and and others that are out there that are, that are having these conversations, because that's the only way we're going to move forward.

Speaker 2: 1:01:10

Yeah, it's, it's a slow progress, but it is still progress regardless. Yeah, yeah, like, I think the bigger the change, the harder it is to accept, truthfully, and I do feel like a lot of what you're trying to change is a huge 180 from what people believe in. So it's definitely going to take some time, but, um, I do think that schools have a huge responsibility in being better in this aspect because, like you said, like as, while people are still students, while they're still learning, I think it's the best time to teach them that like, hey, this is how you should do research, this is how research can actually affect your clinical practice and this is how you should do research, this is how research can actually affect your clinical practice and this is how things can change in the future, and this is why that's okay to learn differently down the road.

Speaker 1: 1:01:55

I love that. I love that the schools have a massive responsibility, but they don't want to accept it, and I know this from my firsthand experience that, talking to many of the schools here, they always want to pass the buck to somebody else. Everyone's pointing a finger at each other. Well, we're not going to change, because we have to teach, because these are the recommended textbooks by the, the college and you know, and everyone is just constantly unwilling to accept that. Maybe you should take responsibility, maybe you should bring a different textbook and maybe you should educate your instructors to be more evidence-based. Maybe you as a school should change your curriculum a little bit.

Speaker 1: 1:02:34

I know it can be done because I'm working with a school in Alberta right now which is unregulated, so they don't have nearly as many people telling them what to do. But I'm very comfortable, I'm very confident to say that you can teach a program that's going to get people to pass a board exam and make it evidence-based. Yeah, by putting everything in the right context. Yeah, exactly, it's not possible. It just takes work and nobody wants to do it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:00

Yeah, yeah, it's just easier to. Yeah, it's so much easier to keep the status quo as opposed to going. Maybe it's so much easier to keep the status quo as opposed to going.

Speaker 1: 1:03:08

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've always done. Take some responsibility. Be a leader. If anyone's listening from the school, hopefully, hopefully, you can. You can change it. I know it. It's possible.

Speaker 2: 1:03:23

The great thing is, there are, there is, a generation of instructors that are trying to be different, but at the end of the day, they're still instructors, as opposed to the entire institution. Yeah, yeah, but again, progress is slow.

Speaker 1: 1:03:34

Progress is slow, but progress is progress yeah, and the thing is too is with the schools is that they don't pay very well I heard so I mean I don't know because I don't work at the school, but if what I've heard is they don't pay very well.

Speaker 1: 1:03:48

So, um, to get an instructor there, you're probably getting somebody that's passionate and excited to do something.

Speaker 1: 1:03:54

But it's not like a career where, like, say, if you were in university, you'd have a career educator and researcher, yes, who their life is dedicated to teaching and researching and trying to create the best content available for their students, whereas in massage school, you know it doesn't pay very well, it's not a career necessarily for most people Like something they kind of do on the side, is you know something, something extra, rather than clinical practice, and so you get it creates a very different mentality with the instructors. So there's gonna be some that are 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 to create, to research, to constantly develop and redevelop a new curriculum. And we're going to, we're going to work together and this is, and these are the papers we're going 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, but if you want to create a world-class curriculum. That's what you would probably need to do.

Speaker 2: 1:04:53

You need full-time instructors, and their life was dedicated to education and and uh, creating content for their their students, exactly, absolutely, and I mean if we're going to be standing on the same level as physiotherapists, you know, as as actual clinicians. Like we definitely need to do something better to improve, like we should stop using textbooks that are, I don't know, 20 plus years old actually some of the 90s yeah, blows my mind.

Speaker 2: 1:05:25

Like some of the things I've read in some of those textbooks. I'm like, wow, this is useless. I'm sorry, but this is completely useless. There's so many things about this was wrong, like being recommended to use certain essential oils, like very specific amount of essential oils. Like what is this? What is this?

Speaker 1: 1:05:46

Yeah, I didn't know that. I've never seen that. This, what is this? Yeah, that's, I didn't know that. I've never, I've never, I've never seen that in textbook, but that's crazy yeah, oils yeah I heard that it's.

Speaker 2: 1:05:53

I think I read that it's not really a required textbook anymore, but I paid 30 grand for my education and this book was one of the main ones used for this.

Speaker 1: 1:06:01

Program like this is ridiculous yeah, 30 000 is a lot of money to spend for something that is, you know, that is not up to date and that's an issue that a lot of people have, that I've talked to a lot of students have like, I can't wait to spend all this money for school and come out of school and I realized that much of the content I learned wasn't evidence-based. And now, that being said, is there's. You know, we're, I know we're kind of throwing a lot of this stuff under the bus. There was a lot of good content in 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 bias of the schooling. It's kind of a topic of this, this anyway, but yeah, there's. I think we don't want to say it all sucks, but there's. There's definitely a lot of room for improvement. There's definitely a lot of room for improvement, absolutely, yeah, I think.

Speaker 2: 1:06:45

On the overall, I don't regret going to school. I think I got a lot out of it. It just so happens that the certain things that I didn't like were just very, very prominent. Like I definitely have made some lasting friendships from that school. Some of those instructors, I do recognize them as huge mentors of mine. They're huge inspirations of just like how to talk to people, like how to how to treat people as people as opposed to their body parts, like I definitely enjoyed 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.

Speaker 2: 1:07:18

But, um, yeah, it's just. But I mean, that's the thing, though it's like part of that frustration is knowing that they can be better and you want them to be better, as opposed to being frustrated like, oh, I hated my time there, like I loved my time there, which is why I want it to be better, because I know that it does have that potential that's such a great point.

Speaker 1: 1:07:36

I'm glad you said that too, because you wouldn't complain about something, or you wouldn't be. Maybe we're complaining, I don't know. You wouldn't be critical of something if you didn't want it to be better, if you didn't care. You're like I don't flipping care what the hell they do. Then you're probably just going to just leave it alone. But exactly, critical. We're having these conversations, we're asking these questions, we're making these statements because we want things to be better, because you exactly, exactly, yeah, and 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 just because we want to feel like complaining is because we know that things could be better and there is ways for things to be better. The schools just need to take that responsibility amongst other stakeholders, but I think the schools are the first ones that need to do that yes, especially because every rmt has to go through school, right that's the one thing they got to do yeah so you have your undergrad, you've you've been an rmt for six months.

Speaker 1: 1:08:27

What are kind of some of your future directions for education or professional development? What are you looking to do next?

Speaker 2: 1:08:32

oh, I definitely at some point want to get a master's. Um, that's definitely something I'm looking into, but that's more like down the road. I really want to have just as much clinical practice and just see as many people as possible. There's like all types of different conditions. Like I love working with people with chronic pain. I do think that I can be a lot more supportive in that sense when I kind of just don't break it down to specific anatomy with them. It's more just like, yeah, like what, what things can you do with your life right now and how can we really make sure that you're having a very fulfilling life? Like I love working with those types of patients, so tend to see a lot of like icbc.

Speaker 2: 1:09:07

Um, I just want to take a lot of courses. Truthfully, like I just want to keep on learning. Um, yeah, it would be great to be an instructor one day as well, but hopefully when I'm more financially secure, I have a little bit more stability and I'm not working six days a week as an rmt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's just so many things I just I want to do. Like I want to do things outside of being an RMT as well. Like a lot of things. I just started my social media page. I do plan on putting out more content as well. Like, right now it's pretty much blank. But yeah, yeah Do you want to.

Speaker 1: 1:09:42

Why don't you give everybody a plug for your Instagram page If you want to see it? Do you want to? What's? Why don't you give everybody a plug for your instagram page if you want to see it? So maybe we'll get some more followers when this goes live hopefully, hopefully.

Speaker 2: 1:09:49

Yeah, it's pretty bad right now, but it's just davermt at instagram and I'm actually 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 content I'm planning on putting out there is just more directed towards patients as opposed to clinicians, but hopefully that inspires other people to kind of have a much more positive direction towards how they treat people and, again, like not seeing them as cars but seeing them as people to help, as opposed to people to fix.

Speaker 1: 1:10:28

Yeah, a lot of us and myself I included like we. We focus a lot of our content on other rmts, but there is a huge component, there's a larger component 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 hopefully get some followers that will listen or see what you have to say and hopefully they'll be able to influence them in a positive way to make good, good decisions about absolutely, absolutely, yeah, yeah that's great.

Speaker 1: 1:10:56

Well, thanks, dave, for this conversation today. I really enjoyed that. That was a lot of fun. I appreciate you so much time from your three jobs and your seven to eight work week to talk to me for an hour and a bit here. I really appreciate that. So reach out to dave. Uh, you can be found on Instagram at Dave RMT. It's fantastic.

Speaker 2: 1:11:11

Perfect. Thank you so much, eric. That was great talking with you. You too, dave, thanks.

Speaker 1: 1:11:16

Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please give it a five star rating and share it on social media. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook at Eric Purvis RMT, and please head over to my website, ericpurviscom to see a full listing of all my live courses, webinars and self-directed course options. If you want to connect with Dave, please search for him on Instagram at davermt. So until next time. Thanks for listening.