Grad helps others provide meaningful care to their loved ones

March 18, 2018

A torn ligament in her knee brought Jackie Mungal back to school as a mature student. After working for more than three decades in the health care field, computer distribution and training – and then home schooling her children – Mungal came to Georgian for the Massage Therapy program.

Within a year of graduation, she started her own home-based and professional office massage therapy clinic – Freedom Massage – specializing in oncology, palliative and orthopedic injury massage treatments. She expanded to two locations and has fellow Georgian Massage Therapy alumni working in her clinics too.

Mungal’s decision to involve other Georgian graduates in her work was a natural choice due to the massage program’s standards of excellence. Plans are in place to expand further by September 2018 to a larger clinic environment closer to the Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre. Mungal has her sights set on contracting even more of her Georgian peers to help fulfill her dream of providing distinction in quality registered massage therapy treatments.

A central component of this lifelong learner has been to continually seek and stretch the boundaries of her skills to better offer current, evidence-informed treatments to the ever-growing needs of clients in the community.

She’s qualified to participate in a hands-on clinical practice training program at the Virginia Hospital Center to treat within the Intensive Care, Rehab, Oncology, Pediatrics and Cardiac Rehab units. This training teaches how to apply critical-thinking skills in a variety of circumstances and safely work with any patient, regardless of diagnosis, while learning the many facets of professional and practical excellence expected of a massage therapist working in a clinical environment.

Mungal has furthered her skills in traumatic scar tissue management to work with post-surgery patients ranging from joint replacements, mastectomies, reconstruction, plastic surgery and general surgeries. She’s added modalities of low-level light therapy and lymphedema therapy to aid treatment protocols.

One of her unique offerings is a program she developed called Touching LOVEDones by CarePARTNERS. Using touch and massage techniques to nurture and manage the side effects of disease and its treatments, Mungal sees the program as an opportunity to educate and empower patients and families to safely engage touch techniques. Whether the caregiver is a husband, mother, daughter, brother or father, this program can help them provide special, meaningful and quality care to their loved ones.

Mungal’s focus is on growing this side of her business to offer group sessions throughout the community to reach as many people as possible. She’s striving to get this grassroots program into hospitals and other care facilities. The new clinic facility will have a training room dedicated to offerings of the Touching LOVEDones by CarePARTNERS.

She volunteers weekly at the Simcoe Muskoka Regional Cancer Centre and treats residents in Hospice Simcoe, providing massage therapy services to those nearing the end of their lives and their families.