Institut Curie adopts a mediation dog to support caregivers and patients

The wounds and healing team at the Institut Curie has a new recruit: Snoopy, two years old, adopted at the SPA. “His role is really going to be to bring joy to a sector where sometimes there is still a lot of suffering”, explains Isabelle Fromantin, head of the wound and healing research unit. This English setter is in high demand by patients and full-time in the service, on alternating custody.

Impeccable hygiene

But his role of mediation, Snoopy also plays it with caregivers. “A little mascot in the hospital, it feels good”, recognizes a nurse. A dog in the hospital inevitably raises the question of hygiene. “When people come out of their outpatient chemo or their outpatient surgery, they go home to their house, with the hygiene that is theirs and their animals if they have any”, explains Snoopy’s surgeon godmother. This dog is washed regularly, monitored by veterinarians and enjoys the garden of the Institut Curie. A study should make it possible to measure the benefits of Snoopy’s presence in the hospital and see under what conditions other establishments could adopt a mediation dog.