Post

Next, start with #teachers.

Because training and employing more people to do the work is just not going to happen, apparently.

That is wonderful. My cat has gotten me through some of the darkest times in my life. I always pushed on for her, as I could never leave her 💕

Trust me, the ratio of dogs will be too low and the dogs will have burnout.

❤️ IT

This ICU nurse of 33 years would have loved that. But never time to even use the restroom most days.

Or like, pay them more and give them more vacation?

Great idea. Dogs are wonderful!🐶

Ffs. I’m sure infection control love that

Or here’s a better idea: hire more HCWs, compensate them properly, and lessen their already overloaded case numbers instead of funneling all the money to the hospital CEOs and insurance companies. This is like “Jeans Day” in the hospital: Bandaid on a massive hemorrhage in a Coumadin patient.

Great 🎉

How about giving us enough pay and time off that we can just go be home with our own pets??

That’s what I meant by The Bad Place. Thanks, anyway.

"US health care environment so discouraging that staff need therapy dogs as much as patients do" Fixed that headline for you. Contact me at the hospital if I can assist with anything else. I'm on another double shift, so that's the best place to find me.

Hospitals said the same about chaplains, dogs are more empathic.

Love 💕

OR — hear me out — MAYBE THEY COULD STAFF PROPERLY

They NEED to hire more doctors and nurses 🙄

How about both?

Dogs are the greatest thing the universe has ever bestowed upon mankind.

I love animals, period. But I have to say this can get out of hand when there isn't a clear law on how well an animal is trained and by whom. There's a serious problem with how people think about their lovely, well meaning pets when deciding what's ok for others. (here comes the flames)

They could just hire more people and pay them well. Seems like a better use of resources

How do I get in on this? What’s the pay? I need to buy some treats. Willing to take treats in place of cash.

Or they could just staff appropriately to reduce stress. I’m an RN.

Dogs are the best.

Dogs make literally everything better.

Hospital systems must provide clear SOPs to providers about what to do and not do if ICE shows up in clinic. Reports of ICE activity are surfacing already. Leaving providers out on a limb to navigate such a high-stakes, ethically and legally fraught decision is unconscionable.

Our hospital had a wonderful dogs that visited with long term patients and kids. Almost everyone working and visiting looked forward to their visits.

They will try anything other than adequate staffing. Poor dogs.

This is amazing and so needed! 🙏🏽

Great idea

More of that HARD HITTING news that NPR is now famous for! What?! Fascist take-over of government? Incompetent & compromised individuals appointed to highest levels of gov'ment? Rampant corruption days into administration? Oh, we'll just report on dogs! F U NPR. You are complicit in this mess.

Or phobias. My kid would never enter a hospital again.

Free college would produce more doctors and lower the workload for stressed out professionals, but I guess dogs are cute.

Nope what type of dogs!! It is DEIA if they pick anything other than a toy poodle. Seriously, Good stuff we all could use a dog at work to deal with stress.

Let's say we take insurers out of healthcare so that staff can have reasonable hours and wages? That's way better than a golden retriever

I wish I could enjoy dog encounters. I am highly allergic to dogs. Even years of allergy shots haven’t helped.

I guess pizza can only do so much.

This is horrible.

Has science go too far? Or has it not gone far enough?!

Gee, I wonder what could possibly go wrong?

You still burn out. Reducing life expectancy. Cite first responders military.

I'm sure nurses and Dr would also like more time with their own dogs. This can be accomplished by adequately staffing our healthcare facilities so people are able to spend more time with their families and pets. Plus, the dogs didn't sign up for this stress.

Bingo. Dogs are cute and make for great press, but safe staffing and addressing workplace violence is better.

Right? This is just toxic positivity. Thought we were done with this shit?

Yeah. As a hospital worker, better benefits would be appreciated. Dogs in the EC? Not so much.

There you go again, Nice Polite Republicans

That’s nice but we would certainly prefer that hospital staff gets paid more fairly since the CEOs are purchasing multiple homes lol

This is a fun band aid for a severe lack of Staff Patient ratio regulations in hospitals. Dogs are way cheaper then hiring appropriate levels of staff. Having worked in a mental healthcare setting I can tell you first hand that low staff on the floor directly harms the most vulnerable in America.

Companies really be doing anything other than hire more staff. Now, not only do you have to take care of your patients in an overworked environment, now you gotta take care of that fucking dog, and see that it gets taken outside, and fed, and watered.

What's JCAHO going to say about their water dishes since nurses aren't supposed to have water bottles at their stations.

I appreciate this, however hospitals need to staff adequately and pay fairly to prevent burnout. This is what the doctor and nurses strike at Providence hospitals in Oregon is all about.

How about more respect for doctors and nurses instead of ppl doing their own “research” and then arguing with the medical professionals. Oh and pay them better, especially nurses.

Oh I can't work from home but Ace Ventura over there can perform surgery? It's no wonder we're all sick

That seems perfectly sanitary...

Or perhaps we could just limit health care worker shifts like we do truck drivers. I don't want overtired health professionals making tired mistakes.

Married to a surgeon, I can tell you it isn't "burnout" it's PTSD and moral injury that starts in medical school and gets worse as the career progresses thru residency, fellowship and practice. I'm sure 5 minutes with a cute doggo will fix things, tho. Also, hand-decorated cookies in the lounge.

Exactly.

As with all things, it's better for the money this way.

I did that with my therapy trained Lab at a childrens psychiatric hospital. The dog was amazingly sensitive to their needs and the staff loved her.

I would like to have a dog at my hospital. But not as much as more staff and money.

"I need better equipment, more staff, more medicines and for you to stop gouging the patients" "Well now you have to take care of a dog at work. For less stress" Seems dumb

Dogs are amazing. 🐶🐕🦮🐩🐕‍🦺🐾

"Sorry, we don't have any more trained nurses because we're downsizing this hospital, so Scraps here is gonna put in your IV..."

Wait I want one

“We’re understaffed and low on supplies.” “Who wants a puppy!!!!”

Anything but appropriate staffing levels.

This made me verklempt.

The yearly bonuses some of the CEOs make could pay for 4-6 additional nurses in a hospital, bringing down care ratios and reducing stress - nevermind the multiple millions the CEOs make for their actual salary. Meanwhile wages for nurses, techs, maintenance, security, etc are stagnant or decreasing.

In other words - allowing private equity firms to gut the health care industry so billionaires can buy more yachts really isn’t a good idea. Cute dog, though.

Why don’t u pay them tards

Those are the dogs I train 😊

Wow, some companies really will do anything to avoid hiring enough people and paying them well.

I could have used a support doggo at work.

Be more critical.

Hope that study isn't funded by NIH

Maybe just hire more RNs and MDs.

God forbid the hospitals bring in more doctors

Buckaroo is a trained therapy dog and she has comforted patients and staff. Everyone benefits. It is a great program. At no cost to the facilities.

A lovely idea and one I definitely support. But wouldn't it just be better to bring in more nurses and doctors. Just a thought.

If they want to ease burnout, they should probably have shorter shifts and higher pay

What a waste of money. Hire more staff. So when a nurse has dog hair on her uniform, what about pts w allergies? Not of fan of animals in hospitals tbh.

That's a great idea.

Please stop. Plenty of people just don't like dogs, have allergies, anxieties and so on.

Or here’s a wild idea: hire more staff and pay them appropriately. Try staff retention measures other than painted rocks and pizza parties.

We have dogs initially used for hospice but they found the dogs helped staff & patients in our hospital system. During some of our stressful shifts the dogs always made morale better!

Wow so motivational. How about the hospitals hire enough staff so they don’t burnout in the first place? What is this trash puff piece.

I’m so allergic to dogs, this would cause me a lot of anxiety.

💯

Hospitals will go great lengths to do anything except maintain adequate staffing. Health care is going to the dogs. Literally.

Cos fuck hygiene

I wonder why we don’t use dogs to help with diagnosis as well? They are very good at sniffing out something like a virus or disease when trained.

Hear me out, maybe make shifts shorter so doctors are not so stressed.

As a nurse, I can say I would prefer better staffing, smaller patient loads and increase in salary.

We don’t deserve dogs

Give us more staff, ensure breaks and increase incentive pay.

That is a great idea….

They are #Angels!

I love the therapy dogs… the highlight of my day many times

I luv this

Patients could benefit from this too. ☺️

Want to reduce health worker stress? Increase staffing so we don’t have to spend every freaking minute terrified we might kill somebody because we don’t have the staff needed to provide safe care. Oh, and REALLY protect us from #workplace violence - with actions and not just words.

It’s sad we have to involve our canine friends in a situation that could mostly be solved with adequate staffing and support staff and less draconian work and call schedules.

Cf. orphan-killing machine.

Can I just get like a retirement and healthcare? Dogs are great but like being able to retire and also take care of ourselves would be way better for my mental health. This has pizza party and covid fire truck parades energy.

Win win ♥️♥️

Real break rooms where staff can relax and eat would also help. Most hospitals have no area to relax away from the noise.

Cute but unsanitary

Meh, we have support dogs at work for patients. It’s actually very good to have them around.

I guess shorter shifts, more staff, and better working conditions is out of the question, huh, @npr.org? Next you'll be running the story about the awesome bake sale for someone's chemo instead of reporting why chemo is so god-awful expensive in the US but cheap everywhere else. Worthless.

@nikki-rae-84.bsky.social

I love this so much. This even made me a little happy-teary. I would love to see this incorporated in every health setting.

Unfortunately, anybody getting anything for anything less than an exorbitant rate in America is now considered "communism".