Winter 2025
Winter 2025 Issue Burnout: Paws for Relief Dog Therapy Is Helping Health Care Professionals Cope With Burnout In the midst of a nationwide health care workforce crisis caused by significant clinician stress and burnout, a furry remedy has emerged at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. A recent pilot study revealed that clinicians who participated in the Buckeye Paws therapy dog program, designed to reduce emotional exhaustion and improve work engagement, experienced nearly double the positive mood levels. Additionally, many participants reported an immediate reduction in perceived stress, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and burnout. “If you have a healthy and well staff member, you will have better patient care, quality, and satisfaction,” says Beth Steinberg, MS, RN, NEA-BC, senior researcher at Ohio State Medical Center’s Center for Integrated Health and cofounder of the Buckeye Paws program. “Anytime you walk through the medical center, you see smiles because people want to stop and interact with the dogs.” After all, spending time with dogs has been shown to lower stress hormones like cortisol while boosting oxytocin, often called the “feel-good” hormone. This natural reaction helps people feel more relaxed, emotionally connected, and less overwhelmed—feelings that are all too common when experiencing burnout. Randall Turner, DO, medical director at Able To Change Recovery in San Juan Capistrano, California, notes that dogs provide unconditional companionship, which brings comfort and a sense of grounding. “This bond can be a powerful way to relieve stress for health care workers who deal with constant pressure,” he says. “Petting or interacting with a therapy dog can improve mood, reduce anxiety, and offer a much-needed break from the daily grind.” Jennie Dapice, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of occupational therapy at the University of New England, who specializes in animal-assisted interventions, shares that therapy dogs are often called in to provide comfort and distraction to patients in medical settings and, it turns out, the same can be said for health care workers as well. “Animal-assisted interventions in health care settings can increase workplace morale and interpersonal communication,” she says. “Interacting with a therapy animal can improve individual health care workers’ mood, perception of work, and psychological well-being. Additionally, empathy toward patients and colleagues may increase.” Interactive studies show significant drops in stress levels immediately following therapy dog sessions, illustrating how these animals contribute to emotional well-being. “In hospital settings, the presence of these animals brings immediate relief and comfort, providing a brief yet meaningful escape from the daily pressures of intensive care environments,” says Kristie Tse, LMHC, founder at Uncover Mental Health Counseling in New York. “The sheer simplicity of petting a dog or engaging in play can have an impact on mental health by triggering the release of endorphins. For professionals constantly on high alert, this biological response fosters a sense of calm and normalcy.” Therefore, introducing dog therapy into wellness programs gives health care professionals a natural, tangible way to manage stress and build resilience. It’s no wonder that more clinicians are considering dog therapy today. The Buckeye Paws Program Steinberg had been an ICU nurse for more than four decades, and as she stepped more into an administrative role, she started researching and developing interventions that would help staff at the bedside. “I saw people suffer the same kind of stressors that I had, which are sometimes overwhelming, and it was incredibly exasperated by COVID, and we still see a lot of that trauma in our staff today, even post-COVID,” she says. “It’s been made worse because people have left the profession, the finances at hospitals are a mess right now, and it continues to be a stressful environment.” Talking with her colleague and fellow puppy owner, Mary Justice, Steinberg learned she had previously had a therapy dog, and the two decided to bring their new puppies to therapy dog training. “We went to training together, and we talked about how we could bring this into the organization as a well-being intervention, but not so where the staff would have to come to us; we would go to them,” Steinberg says. “We were both in administrative positions at the time, so we had some contacts with senior leadership, and we started socializing this idea—to bring therapy dogs in not for patients but for staff.” Within a year, the two put together the pilot program, and it quickly became a success. “We are a level one trauma center, and we had a couple of pretty significant traumas that came in during the time we were piloting, and we brought Shiloh (the first therapy dog) down to the emergency department to see how the staff would interact, and it was amazing,” Steinberg says. “The relief you would see on the staff’s faces, the smiles and tears, the laughter, the people gathering around. The increase in teamwork and collaboration just by putting a dog in the middle of people was phenomenal.” It wasn’t long before the program officially launched. While it was an instant success, COVID came along, and the program was put on hold. “Staff at this time were so stressed,” Steinberg says. “People were falling apart. They would lose three patients in eight hours; they were worried about taking the virus home to their families if they even got home. We were putting people up in hotel rooms. People were crumbling, and we knew we had to bring the dogs back in.” Steinberg called Rustin Moore, DVM, PhD Diplomate ACVS, the dean of the college’s vet education program, and he connected her to two veterinary epidemiologists who assured her dogs were not vectors of COVID. That allowed them to bring the dogs to the hospital after six weeks. “Staff responded so wonderfully,” she says. “We would have staff come and sit with the dogs and just cry for an hour. It was just a really difficult time, and the dogs absorbed a lot of the stress, and it was so beneficial for the staff.” While originally, the Buckeye Paws program predicted it would need eight to 10 dogs, it was decided relatively fast that more were needed, and today, it employs 50 dogs. The success has led to similar programs starting around the country. For instance, Parkview Health, with 14 hospitals throughout Indiana, consulted with the Buckeye Paws founders to help start Parkview Pups, its own dog therapy program. Others are in the planning stages as well. It only makes sense when looking at the positives from the Buckeye Paws program. “The one thing we constantly hear from people is, ‘This is exactly what I needed, I’m not sure I could have continued going on today without these dogs.’” Steinberg says. “That’s the best endorsement we could possibly get.” — A graduate of the University of Miami, Keith Loria is a D.C.-based award-winning journalist who has been writing for major publications for close to 20 years on topics as diverse as health care, travel, and food. |