Dear Clinic Clients,

 

New regulations and statutory law governing massage therapy practices were fully adopted by the State of Maryland almost a year ago. PMTI implemented changes to our training program to achieve compliance, and the school has worked cooperatively with the Maryland Board of Massage Therapy Examiners (MBOMTE/the Board), to achieve all changes and modifications necessary.

 

In a more recent effort, the Board has reviewed PMTI’s Graduate Clinic operations, and they provided advice concerning compliance with the state’s newly adopted statutes. We have had two meetings this month to aid the Board’s recommendation regarding how the school should proceed. The result of these conversations is that PMTI has been advised to effectuate a major change to the way our Graduate Clinic currently functions. The school now has an immediate need to remove unlicensed massage practitioners from their Graduate Clinic schedules, and to staff the clinic with therapists who have a Maryland Massage Therapy License. Our massage practitioners have been informed of this change during the last couple of days, and we of course wanted our clinic clients to know immediately.

 

We know you understand this news is distressing for our community. We care deeply for the practitioners who work here in order to enhance their professional skills while awaiting licensure. We are equally saddened and concerned about the consequences this has for our clients, and the impact these layoffs will have on your potential ability to schedule at the times and frequency you wish.

 

PMTI of course understands that no unlicensed massage therapist is allowed to accept a fee for massage as a professional therapist in a commercial workplace or private/group practice. We have, however, never been advised after decades of disclosure to our regulatory authorities that the law prohibits graduates who are seeking licensure from working in a licensed, accredited and supervised school training environment.

 

Graduate Clinic was founded over 25 years ago with the precise intention of enhancing the skills and professionalism of our graduates by allowing them to conduct sessions and receive support and supervision while awaiting licensure. History has fully demonstrated this clinic experience consistently creates a better entry level massage therapist, a concept that is highly aligned with MBOMTE’s objectives to raise the quality of massage therapy throughout the state. We do, however, respect the Board’s interpretation and resulting advice concerning the law and we intend to be compliant.

 

In order to so, PMTI will immediately seek the services of licensed PMTI graduates to work in the Graduate Clinic to meet your needs.

 

As an educator, it is also our intention to seek a clear exception to recently adopted statutes and to resume operations in the manner under which they have historically been conducted.

 

It is of course also our intention to work with our unlicensed practitioners to assist them in obtaining licensure as rapidly as possible.

 

We hope our clients will be patient as we add personnel who are compliant with the Board’s expectations of the school. We don’t think this will take a significant amount of time, and yet clients may experience some difficulty in scheduling while the staffing shortage is resolved.

 

In closing, please know your patronage is highly valued, and we hope we will be able to fully address everyone’s scheduling needs soon.

 

Yours in Good Health,

Gabrielle Perri, Clinic Manager