Features Research
Biography: Summer 2003

Tell us a little about yourself?
I live in the backwoods of Nova Scotia with my small family, four cats, a dog, and too many chickens.
If I could, I would spend May to October in a canoe. But I can’t.

Professional Profile:
I graduated from Sutherland Chan in 1989. After practicing and teaching in Toronto for six years, I moved to Nova Scotia. Currently, I own the Wolfville Massage Therapy Clinic, and teach at the Canadian College of Massage and Hydrotherapy. I am a partner in the MassageArts group which provides continuing education courses for Massage Therapists, am involved in several research and writing projects, and am currently serving as Vice President of the CMTA.

Influential people or experiences leading you to this profession and career:
As is so often the case with the larger decisions in life (at least for me …), I enrolled in Massage Therapy School more on impulse than careful consideration. Once in the profession however, I have been encouraged to stick with it through the many Massage Therapists I’ve worked with who think deeply and critically about the possibilities of our work.

Also, by the effectiveness of the work. I can’t imagine how many days I would have lost to headaches and low back pain if it weren’t for the regular massages I receive. I know that so many of my clients are
in the same boat.

We are an unrutted profession, unburdened by the outdated ideas of a ‘founder,’ or by an unwieldy bureaucracy. I feel this gives me the opportunity to make my work personally fulfilling.

Most cherished experience or accomplishment. Why?
In 1999, I had the opportunity to set up a new school – design the curriculum, set up a teaching team, and recruit the first class.

Occasionally, we get lucky enough
to be faced with a challenge that we actually have the skills and experience to (almost) meet. This was one of those times for me, and the two years that I worked with that gifted faculty and wonderful student body were a real pleasure.

Hope for our profession in the near and distant future:
The next few years promise to be extraordinarily positive ones for our profession if we can find the resources to meet these opportunities.  I am currently part of a broad-based process consisting of the three Regulatory Bodies, the Canadian Council of Massage Therapy Schools and the CMTA that is working hard to try to initiate a National Accreditation Process for Massage Therapy schools.

This initiative, and this degree of co-operation within our profession, auger very well for a host of other future possibilities including a National Examination Process and a National Research Foundation.  

At the same time, these national undertakings, which provide an essential degree of professional standardization and excellence across the country, will prove tremendously helpful for the ongoing efforts of our provincial associations in their pursuit of legislation.

I believe that Newfoundland and Labrador’s recent success will soon be replicated in several other provinces.  The fabric of our profession could be quite different in five years.

Words of wisdom:
Take lots of time off in August.