MPATH Curriculum
More Than Hands...
MPATH, Massage Palliative Advanced Training for Healthcare, is an interdisciplinary, instructor-led program with the perfect mix of accessibility, flexibility and competency-based learning to cultivate palliative-trained massage therapists.
Participants engage with immersive, real-world clinical experiences as well as synchronous and asynchronous online course content over nine months.
Who Should Take This Course?
Massage therapists who want to deepen their practice, regardless of practice setting.
This course will strengthen your communication, assessment, self-regulation, and interdisciplinary collaboration skills.
What You'll Learn
Foundational aspects of palliative massage therapy including key aspects of care, clinical strategies, communication fundamentals, interdisciplinary team functions, and the overall role of the MT
Serious and chronic illness care from a holistic, patient-centered perspective, incorporating all aspects of physical, psychosocial, emotional and spiritual care
Palliative care ethical issues and perspectives, and legal aspects of care
Advocacy skills to enhance collaboration
Cultural humility and working with special populations in all palliative care settings
Pediatric palliative care and the special issues related to the care of children
Weekly Curriculum
Week 1: You Are More Than Hands
Explore the unique skill-sets of massage therapists beyond hands-on techniques.
Week 2: Palliative Care 101
Learn the basic concepts of palliative care, the composition of a typical PC team, and the role a massage therapist can play on that team.
Week 3: Trauma-Informed Care Part 1
Learn the foundational concepts of trauma-informed care.
Week 4: Communication Skills
Learn techniques to help patients and their caregivers plan for the future, both during the early stages of a serious illness and as a disease progresses.
Week 5: Intro to HBMT
Learn the expectations of practitioners in a hospital environment.
Week 6: HBMT (continued)
Explore the challenges of hospital-based massage therapy (body mechanics, session time/planning, collaborative care, etc.).
Week 7: Live, In-Person HBMT Training
Six days of hands-on learning in the hospital setting, working with adult and pediatric palliative patients.
Week 8: HBMT Debrief
Unpack lessons learned and future steps.
Week 9: Trauma Informed Care Part 2
Dig deeper into trauma-informed care as it relates to serious illness.
Week 10: Intro to Externship
Discuss massage therapy scope of practice and how the knowledge and skills of massage therapists can be fully integrated into patient care.
Week 11: Interdisciplinary Care
Review the typical structure of an interdisciplinary PC team. Understand of the role of each team member in patient care.
Week 12: Ethics in Palliative Care
Explore the ethical considerations unique to palliative practice.
Week 13: Beginning of Externship
No class meeting.
Week 14: Debunking ACP Myths
Learn common misunderstandings about advance care planning.
Week 15: Clarifying Patient Goals of Care
Learn the common characteristics of serious illness and the hallmarks of decline. Explore concepts of hope and resilience.
Week 16: Externship Check-In
Share about lessons learned and questions raised during individual externships.
Week 17: Ethics of Family Dynamics
Learn to support patients’ integration of serious news, have difficult conversations, and participate in family meetings.
Week 18: Advanced Communication
Cultivate advanced communication skills, particularly related to symptom management.
Week 19: Cultural Humility
Learn cultural competency in the context of healthcare. Explore how humility drives effective patient interactions.
Week 20: Symptom Management
Learn some of the most common symptoms of serious illness and massage therapists’ collaborative role in managing them.
Week 21: Pain Assessment & Management
Learn comprehensive pain assessment. Explore patient factors that influence prescribing decisions.
TWO-WEEK BREAK
Week 22: Self-Care in the Sh*tshow
Moving beyond superficial self-care to the deep inner work that sustains, protects, and nourishes us.
Week 23: Geriatrics in Serious Illness
Understand the distinctive considerations for geriatric patients.
Week 24: Anxiety, Delirium, & Depression
Learn about common experiences in the end-of-life process.
Week 25: Symptom Assessment & Charting
Learn about monitoring for opioid efficacy and patient-controlled analgesia. Understand opioid side-effects and substance use disorder.
Week 26: Sacredness & Clinical Engagement in End-of-Life
Explore striking the balance between clinical engagement and humanity.
Week 27: Spirituality & Care
Explore the role of spirituality in patient experience and care planning.
Week 28: Symptom-palooza
Learn about the pharmacological interventions for the wide-array of symptoms that accompany serious illness.
Week 29: Ethics Grab Bag
Discuss real-world ethical situations that have occurred during externship.
Week 30 & 31: Review & Portfolio Development
Engage in small group work to finalize portfolio presentations.
Week 32-35: Portfolio Presentations
Present portfolios to an interdisciplinary panel.
Week 36: Graduation
Hooray!
