Dogtor?
Meet Dogtor Loki. She's a Rottweiler, two years old, a therapy dog whose human is Caroline Benzel. The two of them do therapy sessions at the University of Maryland Medical Center three times a week, going around making people happy with some canine happiness.
Ms Benzel is a medical student of U of M, and what she and Loki are doing is good for the patients and for the two of them!
But, with changes, according to the current national circumstances. Ms Benzel said, "We were doing therapy for the entire hospital system. Whether it be custodians, first responders, nurses, doctors, patients, or even family members in the waiting room.”
But of course, with everything shut down due to COVID-19, there are no more in-person visits to cheer people up. Now they do FaceTime visits.
The staff and the patients now can see Dogtor Loki with video conferences.
“We started contacting people and just checking in and making sure they were doing okay. Then we started doing the FaceTime visits,” the future doctor said.
It's hard to think that this pandemic has turned the world upside down since the first of the year, and it's not even May yet.
Ms Benzel noticed that the doctors are suffering skin irritation from wearing the protective gear for extended periods.
“You can kind of see that wearing PPE for prolonged periods does start rubbing your skin and can start irritating it,” she said. “For me, wearing these masks for short periods of time, it starts to irritate my skin. So, I can only imagine for people wearing it for eight to 10 to 12 plus hours, what kind of damage it can do.”
Her solution was to put together “Hero Healing Kits.” She packs skin moisturizers, lotions, lip balm, medicated powder, teas, and other items in a pocket-sized kit. The kit has a picture of Loki to spread even more happiness and healing.
She's put together, and given out, 4,200 kits in Maryland and Philadelphia.
Loki even puts on scrubs when she goes along to hand out the bags.
No comments:
Post a Comment