DOG BLOG
May I introduce you to Professor
Edward T. Creagan.
 |
| Professor Creagan is Professor of Oncology at New York Medical College and a Fellow in Internal Medicine at the Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Medicine |
His recent publications include:
Dronca RS, Allred JB, Perez DG, Nevala
WK, Lieser EA, Thompson M, Maples WJ, Creagan ET, Pockaj BA, Kaur
JS, Moore TD, Marchello BT, Markovic SN.
Am J Clin Oncol. 2013 Jan 24. [Epub ahead of print]
Jatoi A, Allred JB, Suman VJ, Creagan
ET, Croghan GA, Amatruda T, Markovic SN.
J Geriatr Oncol. 2012 Oct 1;3(4):307-311. Epub 2012 May 7.
He also wrote a BLOG recently on Pet therapy: How animals help us heal.
He also wrote a BLOG recently on Pet therapy: How animals help us heal.
Dr Creagan believes in the healing power of pets. He talks of his
life changing experience several years ago when a patient he thought he would
lose was inspired to fight on by his overwhelming desire to return home to Max,
his German Shepherd.
The Mayo Clinic takes the healing power of pets seriously. It has
Jack; or to give him his correct title, Dr Jack. He is a 10 year old miniature
pinscher. Dr Jack sees around ten patients a day. He is one of the thousands of
canine healthcare ‘professionals’ known as ‘assistance dogs’. ‘Sometimes they help a healthcare provider
with treatment and sometimes they just spend time with patients. The Health
benefits are diverse’ writes Karen Ravn in the Los Angeles Times.
Mayo is world renowned for its scientific rigour and clinical
excellence. There is something like 250 areas of research and numerous research
projects being undertaken in each research area at any one time. Yet Mayo has
Dr Jack. Mayo published a children’s book recently to explain the history of Mayo
and what it does. They chose Jack as the vehicle to do this because they
believe he exemplifies the Mayo model of care. The book is called ’Dr Jack: The Helping Dog’.
Another book published recently on the subject is ‘Dogs that Changed the World’. It tells the
story of Daisy and Tangle, dogs able to sniff out cancer cells, and Delta, a
German Shepherd who can sense changes in the blood sugar levels of her young
master. And at the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University in
Tallahassee, scientists have trained dogs to detect the odour of skin melanomas
and prostate cancer. Researchers are now training dogs to sniff out ovarian
cancer.
ISQua Staff Dogs: Mr Johnny Angel, Maxie, McGrath, Scamp, Muhtar and Sasha
Our pets are always therapeutic for us. But there are also the
professional therapy dogs with which you will be familiar. I well remember
visiting my Father in his Nursing Home where ‘Annie’ the therapy Golden
Retriever used to bring so much joy to what might otherwise have been quite
empty lives. In addition to providing companionship, researchers are now
finding that these dogs are legitimately therapeutic. They have been found to
reduce blood pressure and levels of stress hormones in heart failure patients
and to have improved the focus and memory of patients with Alzheimer’s.
More and more clinicians, like Dr Creagan are embracing ‘pet
therapy’ which surely would have been dismissed as nonsense even as recently as
few years ago – if the notion was even seriously entertained at all. Certainly
it works at the edges as an adjunct and a complementary application to the
scientific method which will always prevail. But why not incorporate something
that brings benefits if all it takes is ‘getting a dog in your life’.
Peter Carter
Chief Executive Officer
ISQua
August 29 2013
August 29 2013
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