Student Practicum

Practice Your Skills in a Real-World Setting

Massage therapy is a hands-on profession, and you need a hands-on education. Vicars gives you hundreds of hours of real-world experience in a variety of clinical environments under the guidance of the school’s trained supervisors.

Before you practice your skills on members of the public, you’ll learn by working with your fellow students in class. Our classrooms have both a lecture space and a lab area, and you’ll have hands-on training every time you’re on campus. You’ll also be responsible for completing and documenting massage assignments on family members and friends as part of your independent study work each week.

Once you’ve practiced your techniques in class and at home, it will be time to work on the public. Students complete a minimum of 330 hours of supervised clinical experience over the course of the two-year program. This is the level of supervised clinic experience a school must provide under the national curriculum standard.

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Real clients, real experience

Our supervised student clinic experience is the backbone of the Vicars program. It allows you to get hundreds of hours of hands-on treatment experience in a supportive and educational environment.

There is a trained supervisor at every clinic to give you support and direction. A normal shift consists of two 60-minute massages, and for each appointment you’ll conduct an assessment and perform a personalized treatment based on your client’s needs. You will gain valuable experience in practice management by taking or updating each client’s health history, and fully recording each treatment session for their file.

This clinic takes place on campus, but outside of your regular classroom hours. Daytime and evening shifts are available throughout the week. You’ll start treating clients at the public clinic halfway through your first year.

Our clinics are very popular in the community, and you’ll have the opportunity to treat clients from all walks of life.

To offer you even more variety, the school regularly organizes outreach events during which students can earn clinical hours in a new setting. We are careful only to choose events that provide a learning opportunity for students and that contribute to the community in a positive way. For example, you’ll often see our students at charity and sports events.

Specialized teaching clinics

One of the most exciting features of our program is the opportunity to work on members of the public as part of your in-class time!

These special clinics take place during scheduled class days and are an opportunity to apply the skills you’re currently learning by working on real people with real conditions. These in-class clinics begin mid-way through first year and continue every month until graduation.

You’ll be focusing on the techniques you’re learning that month. At the start, you’ll be performing relaxation massage; as your skills develop, the clinics will target more advanced conditions. By second year, clinics will be devoted to treating people with specific conditions or needs such as fibromyalgia, arthritis, orthopedic injuries, brain and spinal cord injuries. Each massage includes an assessment prior to the massage treatment and appropriate self-care advice afterwards.