SAN DIEGO — Rady Children’s Hospital is ranked one of the top 10 children’s hospitals in the country which provides top-notch care to more than 300,000 young patients each year.
Unlike other children’s hospitals, Rady Children’s does not have a Resident Canine Therapy Program, a program that would provide for a child-care specialist working alongside professionally trained dogs to help lower blood pressure, anxiety and stress for its pediatric patients.
CBS 8 is a proud partner of Rady Children's Hospital fundraiser to provide a Resident Canine Therapy Program for its vulnerable pediatric patients.
This unit would allow a child life specialist to work alongside certified medically trained dogs that could help lower blood pressure, anxiety, and stress for its pediatric patients.
But it can happen with your help. “Oh my gosh, I can’t even I’m like so beyond excited,” said Taylor Keightley, RCH Child Life Supervisor.
The hospital wants to add three ‘dogtors’ to her team as part of the Resident Canine Therapy Program.
“These medical dogs that are going to come into our hospital, are specifically trained, bred to be able to work with these patients and families that our canine volunteers are not able to,” said Keightley.
The medically trained canines will be much more involved than the wonderful and cuddly volunteer therapy dogs that currently visit from time-to-time.
The certified medical canines will work full-time with a child life-specialist and make their rounds by providing warmth and calmness during new diagnosis, education, a procedure or there for bereavement support.
“They’re able to do things such as putting an anesthesia mask on their face to help normalize that experience for that child. They’re able to put band aids on their fur, they’re able to dress them up and medical coats. They’re able to do their therapeutic interventions and do like art activities,” said Keightley.
Child life specialists play a big role in breaking down the barriers and medical canines can help strengthen the relationships between doctors, patients, and parents.
“We’re really going to be able to meet that child where they are and be able to build that trust, build that rapport and help them get out of hopefully the hospital sooner,” said Keightley.
Rady Children’s wants to continue its best practices and join other children’s hospitals by integrating canine therapy into a child’s medical plan.
“If you can know that you get to greet a dog and have a dog present with you for one of your dialysis treatments. This might change the course of how your treatment goes, this might help you want to show up, it might be less of a battle for mom to get you in the car that day,” said Alex Loker, Vice President of Philanthropy, Rady Children’s Hospital.
She says the canines go through an intense two-to-three-year training for a hospital setting.
“The training that these dogs will have gone through is remarkable. It’s like sending dogs to medical school,” said Loker.
The dogs are matched with a child life specialist who has gone through handler training and will live together.
The costs to sustain the program are expensive and not covered by insurance.
“We really need community support to make this happen,” said Loker.
Programs like this are funded solely through donations.
CBS 8 is Working Fur Kids to help pediatric patients have a more pawsitive experience and allow kids to be kids in the hospital.
“We’re so excited that CBS 8 will be championing this cause with us at Rady Children’s, it’s important that we have the very best patient experience for our kiddos that come here in San Diego,” said Loker.
This canine prescription can be just what the ‘dogtor’ ordered.
“Everything that we encompass, we want to meet their psychosocial needs, as well as their emotional needs as child life specialists, this companion, this medical dog is going to be one of our best friends to do this,” said Keightley.
Working Fur Kids is an effort to help raise funds in collaboration with the public, to start a Resident Canine Therapy Program at Rady Children’s here in San Diego. Please consider making a monetary donation to kickstart this essential program that will help ease the pain and suffering of children who are patients at Rady Children’s Hospital.