First and foremost or profession has no standard of care, doctors have it and we don't. As long as NCB and AMTA are fighting over who has the more creditable test, there won't be any agreement on standard of care either.

you're absolutely  right.
Rajam K Roose said:

I would also like to see more EBR taught in massage schools. If I had known the money and time that I would have to spend for that information after I finished massage school, I might not have pursued a massage career. (Actually, I do enjoy the continued learning!)

One thing I noticed when teaching for a short time at one of the generic massage schools (owned by a corporation and taught nursing, crime scene investigation, bookkeeping, etc.) I noticed that most students, if not all, had a lot of misconceptions about what massage really was. Many students were bummed out in my business class when they learned all the licenses and taxes they would have to pay. And they were equally bummed out in the anatomy course, where they had to learn the A., I. O. of all the various muscles. Most of them seemed to think they would just be rubbing on people with some nice music playing and get paid $100/hour.

Another thing I notice is that when I have spoken with therapists here in my city about bringing in a quality educator for providing a good CEU course, every single one of them have said they have learned enough in massage school and they didn't need to know any more.

I also find that many therapists whom I've spoken with about this topic feel like they don't need research to back up what their intuition tells them. Sure, we all know massage feels good and relieves stress and don't need research to back it up but when someone comes in for a specific thing that massage can help, the therapist who isn't using EBR will not be able to help them fully. If the therapist really understood that concept, it seems they would welcome EBR as it would enable them to use massage at its maximum potential, instead of something that could be effective but seems vague and out of reach.

So, obviously the public's perception needs to change, but I think it would start in massage school as was stated by previous posters. Like the idea of introducing a two tiered education system, where all students would be taught basic massage education but those that want to just provided solely relaxing massage could continue their education in that direction and the others who prefer to utilize massage therapy for pain relief and such could go the other direction. I think it would be easier to make licensing happen through the school system of massage, rather than all these massage regulations in each state. For instance, you wouldn't be able to get a business license unless you went to a certified and recognized school. Education starts in the classroom, otherwise it just goes round and round between the public perception and the student perception.