Massage Therapy Student – Anne Waugh

 “My oldest child had a very bad reaction to vaccination and went from perfectly normal to severely autistic within a month,” recalls Anne. This event launched her on a long journey of exploring alternative and natural health care to help her son.

“It really was that whole journey with him, and the other things I was watching and experiencing with my other two children, that sent me on a path,” says Anne.

Anne became certified to do neurological therapy with special needs kids, as a first step toward her goal of helping families. She had learned that earning her certification in massage therapy would allow her to expand the treatment she could offer to special needs children, and also would be a good learning foundation for an advanced health care degree down the road.

She looked at other massage schools, but picked National because of the cadaver anatomy lab. “The MT program at National is so good! It’s put together so well, and it’s very medically based,” says Anne. “You are really learning the most important things, all the fundamentals.”

“At every other school I visited, they did the bare minimum of what I consider the most important foundations to massage. They would have plenty of classes on other spiritual techniques, fluff and extra frills. I’d rather get the real fundamentals and foundation and take those extra things later as continuing education. To me, there was just no comparison between National’s massage program and the other schools I looked at.”

What’s Anne’s favorite part of the program? “The cadaver lab,” says Anne. “I never tire of studying the body. It is extraordinary! It’s also fascinating to be able to see so many different bodies and the different nuances. Each body is created so differently, it’s truly amazing. There’s just no way to get this education in anatomy from a book.”