a community of practitioners

Do we need to educate hospice organizations?

I've heard stories about hospices and hospitals hiring massage therapists to start clinical massage programs. It's great that they are thinking about adding our services! But the way they went about finding therapists did not end in successful programs. In one instance, a hospital simply contacted therapists from the phone book. Another example is a hospice who placed an ad in their local newspaper. Guess what? They found that the therapists they hired weren't prepared-- and the programs failed.

These stories point to misinformed potential employers of our services. They simply don't know not all massage therapists have the specialized skills needed to work in these settings. How do you think we might go about educating these organizations?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Janet Ziegler on April 14, 2011 at 4:33pm

I can speak a bit from my own experience. I think it's a matter of "try us, you'll like us!" (Meaning Compassionate Touch Practitioners) Before I began working for my agency, they didn't know anything about CT or any type of specialized training for hospice. Former massage therapists had no specialized training. I recently presented an inservice to our staff about hospice massage and several of my teammates (chaplains, social workers, nurses) commented that it was enlightening to them, that they didn't understand what I could possibly be doing with some of our frail hospice patients. Several voiced they could see great value in this work. So maybe it's a matter of really working at educating hospice agencies, one at a time. Maybe we as practitioners should be more aggressively seeking venues to explain our work and the reactions/responses of hospice patients. Real, heartwarming stories can paint a lasting picture...and change perceptions. I've been doing this work for one year, and over time I have become more ready/willing/able to share my experiences and "tout" the benefits of the service we provide. I think once we talk about hospice patient responses and reactions to our very specialized and appropriate sessions, it "sells itself". So basically we all need to talk more about what we do!