"This 3-year-old Golden Doodle Named Professor Bunsen Honeydew Has a 9 to 5 Job at Mount Sinai’s Children’s Hospital, Here’s What His Day is Like" - Charlotte Hu
Professor, whose full name is Professor Bunsen Honeydew, is a 3-year-old golden doodle and the first of two facility dogs to arrive at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital. They're both part of the Paws and Play program in Kravis' Child Life and Creative Arts Therapy Department. The main goal of child life is to facilitate psychosocial adjustment to hospitalization and illness. The largest children's hospitals have been creating facility dog programs for the past 10 years, and Kravis was the first hospital in the New York metropolitan area to adopt this, according to Morgan Stojanowski, MS, assistant director of the Child Life and Creative Arts Therapy Department at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital. Professor mainly works in the outpatient hematology and oncology clinic. Ali Spike, MS, a certified child life specialist at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital is his primary handles, and he goes home with her after work. Mount Sinai is about to kick off a study that will look at the effect that the facility dog and child life specialist has on distress during a certain procedures like blood draw, IV line insertion, port access - which is the way patients might receive chemotherapy in some instances. Using a face pain scale, the hospital is going to study whether Spike and Professor can curb the perception of pain and make it seem more manageable.
- Morgan Stojanowski, MS, CCLS, Assistant Director, Child Life and Creative Arts Therapy Department, Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital
- Alison Snow, PhD, Assistant Director, Cancer Support Services, Mount Sinai Downtown
- Ali Spike, MS, CCLS, Certified Child Life Specialist, Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital
- Diane C. Rode, MPS, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, Child Life, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Director, Child Life and Creative Arts Therapy Department, Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital
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