Why I quit my massage therapy career ∞
About ten years ago, I was formally accused of being an “unprofessional” Registered Massage Therapist, by my regulatory body, the College of Massage Therapists of BC. They didn’t do this because of any conventional regulatory concern (about my competence or the safety of the public) but because I was criticizing pseudoscience in alternative medicine on my website. I accepted an unusual public reprimand and made a few changes to my website, but the CMT pressed their strange case even further, effectively demanding that I quit my skeptical writing altogether.
I quit the profession instead.
It has taken many years for me to feel ready to tell this story. I have been greatly delayed, mainly because, right at the climax of this career crisis, my wife had her spine-crushing, brain-scarring accident while travelling alone in Asia. All that drama permanently changed my priorities, and for a long time I didn’t want to pick at any scabs. But now I’m finally ready to explain how I got these interesting scars…
That’s a link to ScienceBasedMedicine.org, where the story is published, my first writing for another website in quite a while. After many years working exclusively behind the scenes at SBM, it feels great to contribute actual content. It’s been a couple of years since I last wore my SBM assistant editor hat. I miss the job and working with the team there, and it’s a pleasure to work with them again on this piece.