LUTZ \u2014 Most hospital therapy dogs visit for a few hours each week. Lily lives there.<\/p>\n
The 2\u00bd-year-old golden retriever works five days a week at St. Joseph’s Hospital-North, roaming halls, attending group therapy sessions and climbing into beds with patients who need comfort.<\/p>\n
“She came right back to me, let me touch her, do anything with her,” said Diane Sabel, 66, of Tampa, who spent 10 days in the hospital. “Lily gave me a hug and even got in bed with me.”<\/p>\n
Lily is the first full-time facility dog at the Lutz hospital, a step beyond the eight therapy dogs that visit once a week for two hours. The idea came from BayCare’s St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital in Tampa, where a facility dog named Revere has worked with pediatric patients since 2023.<\/p>\n
“We saw how positive our pet therapy program was and wondered what it would look like to have that higher level of interaction,” said Mary Partridge, the hospital’s operations director.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
From left with Lily, Gabrielle Fink, Hailey MacNealy, Crystal Herring, Kerry Hipple and Mary Partridge.<\/p>\n
Photos courtesy of ST. JOSEPH\u2019S HOSPITAL-NORTH<\/p>\n
The hospital worked with Michigan-based Paws With A Cause to match and train Lily. She spent about a year in training, mostly in Michigan, before moving to Florida in June. She completed certification in October and started full time immediately.<\/p>\n
Four hospital employees trained as Lily’s handlers: Gabrielle Fink, an occupational therapist; Crystal Herring, a care coordination manager; Kerry Hipple, a nurse manager; and Hailey MacNealy, a behavioral health therapist. Lily lives with Herring’s family when she’s off duty.<\/p>\n
She visits throughout the hospital, including the emergency department, infusion center and behavioral health unit.<\/p>\n
“I see a lot of patients who have anxiety, depression and pain,” Fink said. “Just having Lily present in therapy sessions has made a world of difference.”<\/p>\n
Sabel, a retired physician assistant with 36 years in health care, saw the benefits firsthand during her stay.<\/p>\n
“I was walking around the unit to regain my strength when I saw Lily,” she said. “She just made me smile and forget that I am sick.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUTZ \u2014 Most hospital therapy dogs visit for a few hours each week. Lily lives there. The 2\u00bd-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[43430,17268,135,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-77144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-lutz","9":"tag-st-joseph","10":"tag-tampa","11":"tag-tampa-headlines","12":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}