Lauren Muser Cates

In 2003, massage therapy found Lauren Cates like a needle in a haystack.  She had never had a massage before she went to massage school.  If you had told her 10 years ago that she would be making her living providing massage for people with cancer and traveling the United States teaching others how to do it, too she would have laughed in your face…politely, of course.   She served, from 2005-2009 as the Clinical Supervisor for Hospital/Oncology Massage at The Teal Center at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA and since 2010 has been president of the Society for Oncology Massage (www.s4om.org).  Lauren has an active private practice in addition to her duties providing and supervising massage for medically complicated, oncology and end of life patients at both Virginia Hospital Center and Children’s National Medical Center with a non-profit organization she co-founded in 2010, called Healwell.  She has participated in adult and pediatric oncology massage research, including writing practical protocols and she co-teaches a 9-day in-hospital training course for massage therapists that provides a unique opportunity to work directly with inpatients in the ICU, oncology and acute rehabilitation units. Lauren also writes a blog at www.lighthold.org.