Tracy King first experienced the power of massage as a high school athlete in Ypsilanti. After receiving one during the swimming season, King shaved more than seven seconds off her time in the 100-yard breaststroke.
“I never put two-and-two together until the next year,” King says about how she believes massage may have improved her athletic performance.
Her firsthand experience with the healing touch inspired King to make it a career. “The mind-set I felt after getting a massage — I thought that was something I could enjoy (giving to others),” she says. As administrative coordinator for the UMHS Massage Therapy Program, which began in January 2007, King works with hospital inpatients as well as staff and guests.
“Because I’m so passionate about (massage) I can enjoy helping others benefit,” she says.
King enjoys similar benefits at home, where she performs weekly yoga exercises such as stretching, breathing and meditating, which help strengthen her muscles and creates equilibrium. She says the mind, body and spirit connection of yoga is much like massage therapy. “Yoga allows you to focus on your inner body and the language that your body speaks,” King says. Both yoga and massage encompass her belief in staying physically and mentally fit.
A class at Washtenaw Community College (WCC) sparked King’s interest in yoga, and it “opened the door for a lot of other opportunities,” she says. After receiving an associate’s in math and science from WCC in 2000, King attended the Ann Arbor Institute of Massage Therapy. Pursuing health care, King earned a bachelor’s degree in administrative health care from the University of Toledo.
In August 2007 King jumped at the opportunity to combine massage therapy and hospital care after reading about a plan by Dr. Steven Bolling, professor of surgery at the Medical School, to start up a massage therapy program.
“When you walk in to a (hospital) room, you can feel the anxiety of the patient. But then you can watch the anxiety and stress melt away,” King says. “Patients tend to fall asleep by the time we’re done with their massage session.”
Although King performs mostly organizational and marketing-oriented tasks from her office in the Cardiovascular Center, she also fills in for the massage therapists.
The Massage Therapy Program quickly has gained popularity. More than 150 inpatients have participated in the program and King hopes the number will continue to grow. “I would love for us to be well-rooted within the (hospital) community,” King says, adding she hopes to raise awareness of the program and reach more of the hospital population.
The program primarily serves patients, although due to high demand King implemented chair massages that provide services to patients, staff and guests.
King plans to go back to school at U-M for her master’s in health care. She lives in Lambertville with her husband, Casey, and their Siberian husky, Selina. In addition to spending time with her family, King enjoys scrapbooking, water sports and exercising.
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