[00:00:00] This is the Collaborative Connections Podcast, a Society for Oncology Massage Production. Our show explores the intersection between massage therapy and cancer care. Whether you’re a massage therapist specializing in cancer care or an educator, this podcast is for you. Let’s explore the world of oncology massage therapy together.

To learn more about the Society for Oncology Massage. Be sure to visit s4om. org. Remember to follow Collaborative Connections on your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode, and we would appreciate it if you left a review and ratings so others can learn more about this podcast. If you would like to suggest a future show topic or provide us any feedback, you can email us at podcasts at s4om.

org. Enjoy the show.

Ericka Clinton: Good day everyone. Welcome to another [00:01:00] episode of collaborative connections, a space for sharing and learning sponsored by the society for oncology massage. My name is Erica Clinton, and I will be your host today on our podcast. We have Becky keen founder of oncology spa solutions. Becky is a licensed master esthetician and cosmetologist.

Ericka Clinton: a holistic cancer educator and a cancer survivor. Thank you, Becky, so much for taking the time to join us today. I would really like us to kind of let our listeners get to know you and find out about the field of oncology aesthetics, which is kind of your, your main focus.

Ericka Clinton: so how long have you been an esthetician and an educator?

Becky Kuehn: I actually started the whole beauty school route back in the day [00:02:00] before they had separate aesthetic training. And so it was a 2000 hour course and that was in 1978. I graduated in 1982. And so I’ve been doing some form of something within our industry since then. And I’ve tried and done a lot of different things, but at that very same time, I actually was diagnosed with cancer.

Becky Kuehn: That was in 1978 and I was only 18 years old and I was diagnosed with a really rare form of uterine cancer. And I have to tell you that at that point, I’d had a couple of friends that had passed from cancer, believe it or not and now we’re finding out why, because of the area I live, very high incidence of cancer, but you know, it’s one of those things that you never think is going to come to you.

Becky Kuehn: And when it did, I had no idea what that path was going to be like. And I was in. School at the time, learning how to work with the hair, the skin and the nails, but nobody talked about how to help somebody going through cancer [00:03:00] treatment. And I remember, you know, some pretty lonely days gone. What do I do?

Becky Kuehn: You know, my hair was falling out. My skin was different than it had been before. And there really was nobody to help. And I, I, I planted a seed in my brain at that point. I was young, but I said someday. Someday I’m going to do something that’ll make a difference for this particular client because they need it.

Becky Kuehn: And in my opinion, I feel like that’s when they need it the most. Right. So through the years I, I’ve, you know worked in hair salons. I worked at a med spa. I worked at an apartment store, everything you can kind of do with our licensing. And landed on what I loved the most was the skin because I’m kind of a nerd when it comes to the body.

Becky Kuehn: I love the human body and learning everything I can about it. And so I thought, you know, I want to go deeper there. So in 2008, I went back to an aesthetic school and I learned the whole skin from start to finish from a European type angle, which I [00:04:00] loved because they talked a lot about not just skin health, but nutrition everything that you need to help have healthy skin.

Becky Kuehn: And so I did that. And then I went, okay, remember Becky, you were going to do something with this for the cancer patients. So I reached out at the time and you know, it’s, this isn’t a program that is readily available now, but it was then. And that was the American Cancer Society, Look Good, Feel Better program.

Becky Kuehn: And so I reached out and said, I would pick me. I would love to volunteer. And they picked me and I went to a local hospital once a month. and helped with this group of newly diagnosed cancer patients. And I know you know what that’s like. It varies. You’ve got people who are, you know, positive. You’ve got people who are sitting in the corner crying.

Becky Kuehn: You’ve got some that are quiet, some that are going to be really exuberant. And I think I just paid attention to the way working with this client base made such a [00:05:00] difference in their life. It was literally life changing. And that’s what they would tell me every time after being done with a two hour class, but I’m an entrepreneur.

Becky Kuehn: So my brain started rolling and I went. This class is great, but it’s not enough. You cannot help somebody in a two hour class. They need more. So I, I cooked up a plan, and I approached the manager at this center. So it’s a hospital and a women’s breast health center. And I said, I have an idea. Can I spend a little bit of time with you?

Becky Kuehn: And she said, sure. So I went in and kind of pitched what I wanted to do. And I asked her if she’d give me a room at her location where I could see patients and help them when they’re going through cancer treatments with their skin conditions, with their hair, with everything that they needed help with.

Becky Kuehn: And she said, you know what? I kind of liked that idea. Let me think on it. And I got to talk to our medical director, our president of the hospital, and [00:06:00] I’ll get back to you. So I remember walking out. The door that day gone. Oh, I can’t believe if I did that. I hope this happens, you know, because this would be great.

Becky Kuehn: I didn’t even make it to my car and she called me. And she had already called the medical director and they said, yes. So that’s kind of where this whole thing started. It started with that one center. I still to this day. So that was in 2009. So even today I have a room at that center where we have patients that get to come in when they’re going through cancer treatment.

Becky Kuehn: And I’ve got estheticians. We have esthetician, acupuncture and massage therapists. Now. So we started with an esthetician with me and built that up to what else do they need and, you know, I always say it’s I, I probably lucked out really because I met somebody with the vision because. They either see it, the importance of it, or they don’t.

Becky Kuehn: And you know, when I’m working with my grads, and they want to get into hospitals, I tell them, you’ll get a few no’s, and that’s okay, [00:07:00] because they don’t have the vision. That’s okay. Keep going until you find the one that does. And so, that was, like, an amazing experience, I met so many incredible people I was Confirmed every single time I put my hands on somebody that what we were doing there was making a difference in somebody’s life.

Becky Kuehn: And so that led to another hospital or another cancer center. So now they were opening a brand new cancer center, the same hospital group, and they said, we want this. there. Will you help us put it together? So I did that. And again, that one is still there. And it’s right in the middle of a cancer center and gets tons of patients get to come in and have these type of treatments and services.

Becky Kuehn: And it’s just been fabulous. That kind of led to people then saying to me, can you show me what you’re doing? I want to do this too. Like I’d be at Costco. I was telling Ashley that, you know, this pin that says [00:08:00] oncology trained. I wear it everywhere I go. And I was at Costco one day and I ran into somebody that I had worked with years ago, didn’t even know she was a cosmetologist and could do wigs.

Becky Kuehn: And she goes, what’s that pin? What are you doing? Tell me what you’re doing. So I told her all about what I was doing and she goes, I want to do it. So she ended up being our wig consultant. And so she came in and, you know, it’s just a great way. And then I thought, I, I need to do this formally because I had so many people asking.

Becky Kuehn: What I’m doing and I’m very passionate about it. I absolutely love working with the cancer patients. And so I thought, let’s put something together. I took a year and a half to write. A, a training manual and I called it life changing aesthetics because that was what the patients always said. And that’s what the students said.

Becky Kuehn: And so we wrote that started. I think I did 1 class the 1st year the next year. I had 6 and prior to coven. We were up to 52 classes a [00:09:00] year somewhere in the US.

Ericka Clinton: Wow.

Becky Kuehn: So, there’s a need for it. I know you know this, right? They need us. When someone’s going through cancer treatment, they need touch. They need touch.

Becky Kuehn: That’s like number one. And I would say the core of oncology aesthetics is two things. One is learning safe touch and how to personalize a spa service for somebody with cancer. So we’re talking about personalized treatments. What do you need to know so that you can customize that service for them, for their safety?

Becky Kuehn: And the other thing is touch, right? Because so many people, when they’re going through this crave touch because no one’s touching them during this time frame. So that’s pretty much how I got started. And I’ve been teaching like this since 2009. The book came out in 2017 and it just keeps, you know, growing and expanding and we’re, we’re getting a whole lot more notice, I would say from cancer centers, and I’m sure you are as well, so.

Becky Kuehn: It’s [00:10:00] all, it’s all been fabulous

Ericka Clinton: amazing. I’m just thinking 52 classes in a year, I would lose my mind, but that’s basically a class a week.

Becky Kuehn: Yeah, it was.

Ericka Clinton: So if you could even just guesstimate how many other estheticians have you trained?

Becky Kuehn: So prior to 20, 20 19, I had 7,000 that I had already trained and we’re now up to close to 10. So we’re, we’re getting geared back up and people are starting to show up again and I don’t know what’s happening, but I’ve just had so much interest from schools and hospitals and cancer centers. So I know that there’s a reason I think it has to do with their survivorship plans and programs, right?

Becky Kuehn: So they need some different things for that so that they can get their funding. And so it’s really opened a lot of doors. We have I want to say 46 now, 46. Six cancer centers [00:11:00] in the U. S. that have an oncology trained esthetician in them, which, you know, that’s, that’s a good number, but there’s so many more, right?

Becky Kuehn: We need to get out there and really, you know, shout it from the rooftops what, what we have, how we can help and why they need us,

Ericka Clinton: And that’s, I mean, but 46 hospitals or cancer centers, that’s amazing. Because clearly, you know, as an educator, you always know that you pass down this lineage to the folks that you train. That’s really amazing. And so the hundreds of thousands of people that you are impacting directly is huge.

Ericka Clinton: And that’s, that’s so, so inspiring. So you mentioned that You were originally trained as a cosmetologist, and then you went and actually studied aesthetics. So, from the standpoint of a trained esthetician, what does your education add to [00:12:00] their, I guess, skill set,

Becky Kuehn: training,

Ericka Clinton: oncology?

Becky Kuehn: right? So, estheticians right now currently have an average of about 600 hours of training, which isn’t a whole lot, right? Not a little, but it’s not a whole lot. It could definitely be more. So they cover the basics in that. So when somebody goes through aesthetics school, you know, they learn the basics.

Becky Kuehn: The skin functions, the things that they need to know. Just waxing and those types of things, right? Just to get out. Until 2019, every basic aesthetics book Said that working with a cancer patient was a contraindication and I thought you know what that’s wrong So I started beating on a few doors and in 2019 Milady, which is one of the standard aesthetic training books Contacted me and they allowed me to put into their training manual that this is a modality That’s legitimate to use your license with if you get continuing [00:13:00] education So now it’s no longer a contraindication, you can work with a cancer patient, you just need additional training.

Becky Kuehn: And I would say since 2019, I’ve had so many students who actually went to school because they wanted to work with oncology. You know, unfortunately, in today’s world, we’ve all been touched by cancer. Everybody knows somebody that has had cancer. And so there are many reasons why somebody would want to do, you know, go this direction and do oncology aesthetics.

Becky Kuehn: So that kind of opened a lot of doors. And then I’m kind of a stickler for this, which is why I’m really excited to work with you all is that I’m really high standard. Of education, and I have been since the beginning. So there have been others that have taught this course and they’ll teach it in four hours or two hours.

Becky Kuehn: And I’m like, no, you cannot teach this in that amount of time. You know, if you really want to be an expert in something or a specialist in something you need to learn everything you can about that topic, [00:14:00] and it takes more than two hours to learn everything about cancer. Right. So my class has always been 24 hours.

Becky Kuehn: minimum, and then we do an advanced class later. But going into this year, because of our elevated standards of practice with the S4OM, we are going to be closer to 36 hours for this course. And an exciting thing is, is that a college picked it up last year. We’re doing a pilot right now, and they are offering this course, my course, for three credits.

Becky Kuehn: Three credits for the quarter. So it’s really exciting.

Becky Kuehn: It’s just moving into a different direction, right?

Ericka Clinton: Yes.

Ericka Clinton: And moving like that requires someone like yourself. Right. Someone who realizes that you need to elevate the standard. You need to elevate the profession by adding in specialization. And obviously [00:15:00] the need is there. So, you know, filling that need, because becomes very fulfilling work.

Ericka Clinton: that, that’s just amazing. And being given college credit for your course, that is amazing. Super duper.

Becky Kuehn: Exciting. Yes, it is. I’m excited too. It was a little scary at first because I had to really go through everything and make sure it was like, you know, all the T’s were

Ericka Clinton: yes.

Becky Kuehn: the I’s were dotted and oh, yeah,

Ericka Clinton: Yeah. Writing college curriculum is fun to say the least. And you learn a lot as well when you’re putting stuff like that together. And of course, you know, when one. School does it. Hopefully you’ll see this domino effect of other programs deciding to include this as well. I mean, it also benefits the school, right?

Ericka Clinton: They get to graduate people with higher qualifications starting out. So everybody kind of wins in that situation

Becky Kuehn: They [00:16:00] do. Yeah. Well, the point of schooling is to hopefully be able to come out with a career skill that you can actually make a living at, you know, and so to be able to say, I also am oncology trained, I have so many examples of my grads going to a job interview and interviewing for a job when, you know, 10 other people were interviewed, they got the job and were told by the doctor, the derm, the salon or spa owner, But You got this because you went the extra mile and have this oncology training.

Becky Kuehn: Because we know that cancer patients want to go to the spa. We also know, unfortunately, every day they get turned away because the team is not trained to work with them. You know, and to me that should not have to happen. Get some training and then you can help them,

Ericka Clinton: Yes, make sure again that people can get safe care wherever they are. And. You know, as, as [00:17:00] survivorship increases, are going to have many more people with cancer as part of their history. And it’s so important. That whether we’re talking skin care or massage therapy, that people have some level of training so they know how to provide for those individuals as safely as possible.

Ericka Clinton: it’s amazing that you have over almost 10, 000 students out there being able to do that kind of work. That’s amazing. So let’s talk a little bit about. Skin health or skin care while people are undergoing treatment for cancer, what, what goes on, what are the things that oncology estheticians mainly support and help them with?

Becky Kuehn: okay, so, that would be, a list of things that fall under something called medically reactive skin. And what causes medically reactive skin? Stress can cause that. Multiple [00:18:00] medications can cause that, cancer treatments can cause that, lack of sleep can cause that, and nutrition deficiencies can cause that.

Becky Kuehn: So when you take a look at that list of what they, they say can cause or exasperate medically reactive skin, that’s a cancer patient. They have all of those things going on. They’re a little stressed out. They’re on multiple medications. They’ve got the cancer treatments. And so they need different care.

Becky Kuehn: They need different products and they need different touch at this time. So one of the things that an esthetician would learn when they come to an oncology aesthetics class is what’s going on with your client and what, what do we need to customize or personalize? What can they have? What can they not have?

Becky Kuehn: How are we adjusting our massage pressure? And how are we adjusting our massage direction? Because they’re taught never to move in the direction of compromised length. And this is something that, you know, you’re not taught in basic [00:19:00] school. In fact, it’s the opposite of what we’re taught in basic aesthetic school.

Becky Kuehn: You know, we move towards the heart, right? But that might not be the direction that you can move on this client if they’ve got compromised lymph in the left axillary, right? And so you need to know these types of questions. And so we work with that and then management of cancer side effects because most of the medications cause some sort of skin side effect being probably the most common, extremely dry, uncomfortable skin.

Becky Kuehn: It thins the skin, it reduces their platelets. So they’re now a little bit easier to bruise and bleed. Right. Their white blood cells are down. So now we know we need to really make sure we’re sanitizing everything and sterilizing our equipment and making sure we’re ready for that client. So we don’t introduce anything that could be harmful to them.

Becky Kuehn: So, they’re just go a little bit deeper on the things that, you know, we learn in school with the addition of now, how do you take care of somebody with medically reactive skin?

Ericka Clinton: Wow, that’s a lot and that’s [00:20:00] nothing we cover in massage school at all. I mean, we talk about skin a bit. Obviously, it’s a, the largest organ and it’s one that we contact. But the, the aspect of skin health. Is often kind of told that it’s out of our scope of practice, which makes sense. It’s falls into the realm of aesthetics.

Ericka Clinton: So I also understand why a lot of massage therapists are dual licensed or dual credentials. So they can have that layer of, of expertise,

Becky Kuehn: Just

Becky Kuehn: more.

Ericka Clinton: exactly. And to know more, so, estheticians. what parts of the body, are you all trained to massage

Becky Kuehn: So, I would say in,

Ericka Clinton: everybody?

Becky Kuehn: right, the majority of the states, so let’s say about 48 of the 50, we are taught, our scope is from, you know, neck, head and neck, right? So, we can do scalp, we can do the face, we can do hand and arm service, and usually a foot and leg service to [00:21:00] the knee.

Becky Kuehn: Okay.

Becky Kuehn: now in some states they can also do what we call a back facial, so, and a lot of schools are teaching that now too, so that’s taking care of the skin on the back, we also take care of the skin on the decollete, so we have quite a large space that we’re actually working with because the skin of course goes from head to toe.

Ericka Clinton: Right. Right. But the focus is really skin health. Hmm.

Becky Kuehn: How can they do and get the best skin health that they can get? There was a dermalogical study, and I think it was in the early 80s. It was done by three nurses. And they did a study to determine how skin health affects a patient. And then, You know, ultimately, they’re healing, and it was the number one cause of concern.

Becky Kuehn: They were asked ahead of time, Are you worried about hair loss? Are you worried about what’s going to happen to your skin? Are you worried about, you know, your future? All these questions. The number one concern [00:22:00] after the fact was their skin. Before, they never even thought of it. It was hair loss or something else.

Becky Kuehn: Right? Am I going to live? But then afterwards, when they are asked the same questions, they came back and said the most disturbing and the hardest part for them to deal with was the skin, because this is what we put forward to the world, right? You know, and I have a little story if we have time, but I had a patient who came in one day, and she came in, she sat down in the chair without even saying anything to me, and so I noticed that she walked into my treatment room and I said, hello, are you my two o’clock appointment?

Becky Kuehn: Are you Mrs. So and so? And she said, yes. And I’m like, well, welcome. What’s going on? How, how’s your day? And she said, well, it’s not going so good. She goes, she had really, you know, the red cheeks that you get from chemo. And she had no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes. She said. Because of this, I don’t go [00:23:00] anywhere, she said, but because I was coming here today, I decided to stop at the grocery store.

Becky Kuehn: And so she said, I was standing in line and someone, two people in front of me turned around and they took a glance at her and looked back and said, Oh my gosh, don’t you know about sunscreen? And I said, what? She really said, somebody really said that to you? And she said, yes. And I go, what did you say to her?

Becky Kuehn: And she goes, well, I figured it was two, I had two choices. Kick her butt. Or educator. And I said, what’d you do? And she said, I educated her. I told her I had cancer and this was from chemotherapy. Of course, then the lady was like, oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry. I’m embarrassed. I shouldn’t have said anything.

Becky Kuehn: But those kinds of things matter. And that changed her whole perspective of whether she could go to the store or not. Right? So then she comes in, we do a nice hydration treatment. And at the end, I just covered her little red cheeks with a little bit of mineral powder. I didn’t do [00:24:00] a glam makeup. All I did was put that on, put a little lip gloss on her, and totally changed her day.

Becky Kuehn: Totally changed her world. She said, now I can go to the store, right? So it’s, you know, it was something that just kind of clicked in me, how easy it is for us as spa professionals to change their day.

Ericka Clinton: Hmm.

Becky Kuehn: need to be able to do that

Ericka Clinton: That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. And I’m sure things like that happen on a regular basis for the folks that you’ve trained. And in the cancer centers and hospitals that have been brave enough to realize that bringing in the world’s, you know, complimentary therapies of massage and acupuncture and aesthetics that they bring real value.

Becky Kuehn: right?

Ericka Clinton: and to the patients they serve.

Cancer is, you know, public a lot of times because of the hair loss and the skin conditions and the rashes and the things that can happen and, you know, for a lot of people, cancer needs to be or they want it to be private, but they [00:25:00] can’t. If they can’t cover it up, right? So then they stay home and what kind of quality of life is that?

Becky Kuehn: So it is very important what we do, all of us. Yep. And you know, I’ve got many grads who are dual licensed as well in the massage. So I love that because then that to me is really a whole client you can take care of. You can take care of them from top to bottom, right? Make their soul and their spirit feel good, help their skin get in better health.

Becky Kuehn: And it’s just to me, better elevated care for a cancer patient.

Ericka Clinton: absolutely, Wow. That is so much of the questions I had in mind that I’m like, Oh, now I understand. And so I think I have a very different outlook as well. The school that I work for, we own an aesthetic school. And so now I feel like I want to run down the street and be like, are you doing this?

Ericka Clinton: Are you training people

Ericka Clinton: in this? We should bring this in. We should bring this in. And I have [00:26:00] someone you can talk to. Because again, it just, adds a level of training and support that I think also is so good for the professional, right? I mean, this

Ericka Clinton: is, this just gives you more tools in your toolbox, as I like to say.

Becky Kuehn: Yes.

Ericka Clinton: Well, before we stop, I have one Last question for you, and it might be a big one, but I, I’m going to ask it anyway. So what do you hope the next decade will bring for oncology aesthetics?

Becky Kuehn: I love that question because it’s really the same dream that I’ve had from the very beginning and I hope this is okay, but I have always used this quote when I heard it, it hit and touched my soul where Martin Luther King said, I don’t didn’t have a dream. The dream had me. There’s a difference about that.

Becky Kuehn: You know, he said, I have a dream. Everybody remembers that. But he said, The truth is that dream had me and when a dream has you, it doesn’t let go. I will be on this [00:27:00] path till I am 90. Erica, I, as long as I can do it, I’m going to be on it because that dream has me. And that dream is that every cancer patient in the U.

Becky Kuehn: S. and maybe out into the world as well will have touch. Safe care and help when they’re going through cancer treatments when that can happen when every cancer patient, no matter where they live, what their age, race, gender, anything pocketbook, none of that should matter. Every 1 of them should have the care that they need when they’re going through cancer.

Becky Kuehn: And that’s my goal. And I think with this collaboration, you know, it’s going to open more doors because. On both sides. You know, I’m in 46 hospitals. Your people are in hospitals. You’ve got schools. Everyone knows a school. Everybody needs to get on board with this and really bring this in as part of basic training.

Becky Kuehn: They need to know you can work with a cancer patient. You can and this is what you need to do.

Ericka Clinton: [00:28:00] and that’s a great goal and an amazing one. And I feel very blessed that S4OM can be part of that journey. For you and for other oncology estheticians. So I’m going to say thank you very much for joining us today. And to our audience, I just would like to kind of expand a little on what Becky has been talking about.

Ericka Clinton: But S4OM is embarking on having oncology estheticians join our group and expand the opportunities for people living with cancer to receive the highest level of care in massage therapy and skin health. We hope that this podcast helps our community understand why these two professions should unite and the value each group brings to the other.

Ericka Clinton: Becky, thank you again. This

Becky Kuehn: you, Erica.

Ericka Clinton: Please, everyone have a great [00:29:00] day and I hope you enjoyed today’s podcast.

Becky Kuehn: Thank you.