Paws and Reflections: A Journey into Animal-Assisted Healing with Whitney Romine, MPH, C-AAIS Animal-Assisted Services Coordinator at Mayo Clinic Rochester

In this week's heartwarming holiday episode of PX Space, host Linda Robinson speaks with Mayo Clinic Rochester's Animal-Assisted Services Coordinator, Whitney Romine, MPH, C-AAIS. With a remarkable 13-year tenure as a hospital-based therapy animal program advisor and volunteer coordinator, Whitney brings a wealth of experience and passion to the discussion. 

Whitney's journey unfolds with vivid tales of her discovery of the Volunteer Services profession and hands-on involvement in an Animal Assisted Support program, where volunteers, accompanied by their dogs, provided heartwarming visits to patients. As she reflects on her early experiences, Whitney fondly recalls coordinating her first Pet Partners evaluation event and attending a life-changing conference where a leader in animal-assisted therapy shared an inspiring story of how he and his parrot connected with patients. Her firsthand account of these events emphasizes the dedication required to cultivate positive human-animal relationships and ensure the success of therapy dog teams. 

Whitney shares her commitment to advancing animal-assisted programs beyond traditional models, envisioning collaborations with clinicians and integration into treatment activities. Her enthusiasm for innovation is paired with a strong emphasis on ensuring the welfare and enjoyment of the animals involved. 

 
Tune in for heart-warming stories of transformation, compassion, and the extraordinary impact that animal-assisted support programs can have on individuals seeking comfort and support in healthcare settings. 

Transcript

Transcript 

00:00:00 Ashton Elder 

You're listening to PDX space, A Patient Experience podcast devoted to the human side of healthcare, brought to you by MDM Healthcare committed to excellence in healthcare, offering a wide range of technology products with your host, Linda Robinson, the Vice President of Clinical Excellence. 

00:00:26 Linda Robinson 

Welcome everyone to another episode of PX Space. I'm Linda Robinson, your host. Today we are thrilled to discuss a heartwarming topic involving our furry companions in healthcare. That's right, animal assisted services. What was once known as PET. 

00:00:46 Linda Robinson 

Therapy has evolved into a department that contributes daily to a holistic approach to healthcare. Whitney Romine, our guest today, is going to share with us the importance of the human animal bond and its positive impacts. 

00:01:03 Linda Robinson 

Welcome Whitney. 

00:01:04 Whitney Romine 

Thank you, Linda. 

00:01:05 Linda Robinson 

Whitney is the Animal Assisted Services coordinator at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. 

00:01:11 Linda Robinson 

She is a certified animal assisted intervention specialist and holds a Canine Assisted intervention Specialist certificate from the University of Denver Institute for Human Animal Connection. Her background is in healthcare volunteer coordination, animal assisted Services program administration. 

00:01:32 Linda Robinson 

And public health, with a focus on one health. 

00:01:36 Linda Robinson 

As an animal welfare advocate, she centers animal choice, consent, positive reinforcement, and animal handler empowerment. In her practice, Whitney is a subject matter expert and a member of the Association of Animal Assisted Interventions Professionals and a member of the American. 

00:01:58 Linda Robinson 

Psychological association, human animal interaction. Division. Wow. That is a mouthful, Whitney. 

00:02:06 Whitney Romine 

Yeah, that's a. 

00:02:07 Whitney Romine 

Mouthful. Thank you, Linda. I'm excited to be here. 

00:02:08 

It is. 

00:02:10 Linda Robinson 

That is wonderful. I am so excited to have you here and you know my first thing, I think we all love animals. But you have just taken it so much further and I have to tell everyone on the phone, everyone I talk to at Mayo tells me I have to meet Whitney and I must talk to Whitney. So here we are. We got Whitney. 

00:02:30 Linda Robinson 

So share with us, you know your passion. What inspired you to engage in animal assisted services? Was it a lifelong dream or did something drive you to get involved? 

00:02:44 Whitney Romine 

Uh, that's a great question and it has a complicated answer, but essentially that there were a series of uh. 

00:02:54 Whitney Romine 

Crisscrossing events that that kind of led me down this path so it all started back in college. I was participating in a group called Kent State United for Biloxi. It was right after Hurricane Katrina, and we went down to Mississippi and the Gulf Coast area, and we did a lot of restoration work. And I found that to be one of the best experiences of my life and. 

00:03:14 Whitney Romine 

I remember coming home after that, volunteering and thinking, you know, I really wish I could have amazing volunteer experiences like this, but with the. 

00:03:21 Whitney Romine 

Blog and so then I really started to look for what could that look like and at the time. 

00:03:30 Whitney Romine 

I had to focus on my studies and I didn't really have too much time for volunteering. And then when I graduated my first post graduation job was as a hospital volunteer coordinator and I didn't even know the volunteer coordination was a profession that you could. 

00:03:44 Whitney Romine 

Get a job in or you could work in and it was kind of a serendipitous moment that I even discovered the field, but it was a perfect fit for me because I just absolutely love what hospital volunteers do. I love how important they are to making sure that patients have a really good experience, but I don't think I really appreciated how important they are until later on in my career, as I really. 

00:04:04 Whitney Romine 

Started to hear the stories of the volunteer. 

00:04:07 Whitney Romine 

And seeing the impact that they have on patients and and all of these amazing transformative stories. So in my first role, I was part of my caseload. And in addition to several other volunteer programs that I provided support for was the animal Assisted Support program. And we had volunteers that provided visits to patients with their dogs. 

00:04:27 Whitney Romine 

Similar to what most people are familiar with and so as part of that role, when I was learning how to run programs like that. 

00:04:34 Whitney Romine 

I was asked to coordinate a pet partners evaluation inside the hospital, so I had to book the room and I had to recruit volunteers to be testing assistance and I had to book the Pet Partners evaluator and Make sure they had everything they need. So I actually got to assist and be part of that day and it was just really awesome to watch how they test therapy dog teams, how they. 

00:04:55 Whitney Romine 

Take them through the the role plays and the different skills and things that they're going to need to know to be successful in our evaluator. 

00:05:03 Whitney Romine 

She was just awesome. She was. She's a big part of what inspired me to get into this role. She was a recreational therapist that worked in the hospital and then also integrated teams into patient care activities. And so her wealth of experience in that area was really impressive. And I thought, I want to be. 

00:05:21 Whitney Romine 

Just like her. 

00:05:22 Whitney Romine 

Want to be somebody who knows the hospital setting that can help volunteers integrate in the best possible places and and grow? 

00:05:28 Whitney Romine 

So. So I've always felt that animal assisted programs could do so much more than they currently do. A lot of the programs are really structured around that initial model of. 

00:05:38 Whitney Romine 

Going to visit a patient sitting in the room for a few minutes and leaving, but some of our teams and listening to some presentations from other practitioners in the field, you know, we heard about animal assisted support teams that we're partnering with clinicians and being involved in treatment activities. And so I was always really passionate about how can we innovate and do more. 

00:05:58 Whitney Romine 

But also how do we do it in a way that's fair and enjoyable to the animal that's participating as well? 

00:06:04 Linda Robinson 

Which is so important because you don't want to put a dog into a situation where they're not comfortable. And I know that that's something that you have a lot of strong feelings about. Tell me a little bit about Doctor Fine. 

00:06:16 Whitney Romine 

Yes. So it about a couple years into that first job actually right before I left that job to go to another role in Pediatrics. I was, I got a blind invite to a conference in I think it was around Cincinnati. OH, it was the animals for life. 

00:06:35 Whitney Romine 

Conference in 2014. And so I asked my supervisor and she said well, it makes sense, is part of your role. So go ahead and. 

00:06:41 Whitney Romine 

Ohh and so here I am all by myself. I didn't know anybody in the field sitting at this conference listening to people talk about these amazing innovations of partnering with animals and how do we protect animal welfare. And so I didn't know at the time that Doctor Aubrey fine, who is considered like the the Grandmaster of Animal assisted interventions. 

00:07:02 Whitney Romine 

He was presenting, and so he gets up and he tells this amazing story about his work as a pediatric. 

00:07:08 Whitney Romine 

Just and so he's sharing the story about how he trained a parent to participate in interventions with his clients. And so the the one that really stood out to me, that really inspired me to this day. He's telling the story about how he trained this parrot to help his clients engage with him. And so how. 

00:07:28 Whitney Romine 

He did that. 

00:07:30 Whitney Romine 

Was whenever a. So he's a pediatric psychologist. So his kids that are coming to him for treatment and when kids are coming. 

00:07:37 Whitney Romine 

Treatment. Typically it's because the school or a parent referred, then they usually don't want to be there, so it's really difficult to create that kind of therapeutic relationship with someone who really doesn't want to be. 

00:07:47 Whitney Romine 

In therapy, so he utilized kind of the natural social lubricant effect of animals. By partnering with this parrot. So the parrot was trained. 

00:07:57 Whitney Romine 

Whenever he got notification that a client was. 

00:08:00 Whitney Romine 

Is seated in the waiting area that it would go out to the waiting room and he was telling the story about, you know, the little 2 feet walking across the floor. The the parrot would go out to the waiting room and. 

00:08:09 Whitney Romine 

Say the doctor. 

00:08:10 Whitney Romine 

Will see you now and so of course, what is your natural reaction when you hear that right? You like perk up. You're like, what is this? 

00:08:17 Whitney Romine 

Really happening can. 

00:08:18 Whitney Romine 

You imagine a kid seeing a parrot. 

00:08:21 Whitney Romine 

Calling them back to see their doctor. Like I wanna meet that guy that trained that bird and I want him to tell me everything about that bird. If I was his patient. And so that kind of social effect. And so the parrot would lead them back and they'd meet Doctor Fine and he would talk about, you know, he'd introduce himself and say, you know, I'm so glad you're here. This is. 

00:08:28 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:08:40 Whitney Romine 

My I don't remember the Parrot's name. I'm so sorry, Doctor. Fine. But he would just tell the story about, you know, this is my parrot. And you know this is what he does with me. You know, we're partners. And so they would kind of start the conversation off in a totally safe, neutral way where they can start to build rapport and relationship. And I thought, Oh my God, that is amazing. How many of us go to doctor's appointments, where we sit in a. 

00:09:02 Whitney Romine 

Uncomfortable lobby that's busy or crowded, or, you know, people are shouting or or just talking loudly. You have these overhead. You know, there's a lot of stimulus in hospitals and healthcare that can be really difficult. And so imagine if you had an environment like that where something new and novel and exciting and something that was really engaging. 

00:09:21 Whitney Romine 

Interacted with you and invited you in, like, how amazing would that be if we can partner with our our animal friends, our animal companions, to create those kinds of experiences where everybody is enjoying the interaction? To me, that's magical and that's what I love. 

00:09:35 Whitney Romine 

About this work. 

00:09:36 Linda Robinson 

I agree that does sound magical I. 

00:09:38 Linda Robinson 

Can just see the faces. 

00:09:39 Linda Robinson 

Of those children, like wow. As a parent, I would have been blown away and I absolutely love the term social lubricant effect. I've never heard that. 

00:09:43 Whitney Romine 

Tell me more. 

00:09:53 Linda Robinson 

But it fits. 

00:09:54 Linda Robinson 

It fits perfectly. You think of that? 

00:09:58 Linda Robinson 

Emotional, psychological. Just the way they're feeling. Going in there. Like, is there something wrong with me? Why do I have to be here? I don't wanna talk to them and cause you never want children to feel like there's something. But what a way to take all of the sting away from having to go in there and you're not mindlessly watching television that's on the wall. 

00:10:19 Linda Robinson 

That you cannot see that I would. I would take a parrot any day. What a wonderful story. I I want to see Doctor. Fine in action. 

00:10:29 Linda Robinson 

So you know. 

00:10:30 Linda Robinson 

As you're talking about those interactions with those children, go ahead and identify some more of the benefits of that human animal interaction. Tell us about the science behind it, the underlying need. You know, I think as we were just saying, we all see the wonders of it. 

00:10:51 Linda Robinson 

How a pet can be so pivotal in our life, but it's so much more like, you know, you were talking about the bond earlier that that blew your mind away when you you had that first. 

00:11:01 Linda Robinson 

That first position and I I think about me, you know I have a bond with my dog but not that type of bond that that level. So tell us tell us about these benefits. It's just sounds so incredible. 

00:11:15 Whitney Romine 

It is really incredible to see how animals can help us navigate the day-to-day life, and I think we're starting to really appreciate all the different aspects of life that animals really are involved in. And I mean, they're on TV, they're. 

00:11:32 Whitney Romine 

Everywhere out and about in our our world, they're sometimes in our homes or they're they're out in public. So they play a really important and pivotal role. So the the research now is is trying to capture what exactly is that benefit. So there's some really promising studies that have come out to show a lot of different types of benefits. A lot of it is anecdotal people sharing. 

00:11:52 Whitney Romine 

That animals are important to them. 

00:11:53 Whitney Romine 

That animals are part of their family, their family members, not just a pet anymore. And so in addition to all of those kind of anecdotal, we're starting to see a lot of push for more specific measures of animal assisted interventions, not just the anecdotal, but also what are the quantitative benefits, how do we measure these kinds of things? So we're. 

00:11:59 Ashton Elder 

Right. 

00:12:14 Whitney Romine 

Looking at not just affiliative behaviors and social connections like we talked about before, but how are we looking at how do we measure safety? So we're looking at things like mood, motivation and and general outlook, kinds of surveys and questionnaires and instruments to to measure these types of effects. So we're seeing an overall increase in protective effects. 

00:12:19 

Right. 

00:12:34 Whitney Romine 

And factors for those types of of services like the mood, motivation, environmental safety. But we're also seeing things like increased physical activity. We can measure, you know, if people who live with an animal will exercise on average longer than a person who does not have a pet. So sometimes people that don't. 

00:12:52 Whitney Romine 

Pets don't really get out much, but a person with a pet will get out at least 20 to 30 minutes a day because they have to walk their their animal. They want that physical activity. Some people will only do it for the pet, not for themselves. 

00:13:05 Linda Robinson 

Well, and it also gives them someone else to care for. I think of my mom, who's 89, and I'm struggling with my siblings right now because I want to do something like that for her. Give her purpose, get her up, get her taking care of something else so that, you know, my dad's not been gone long. And she took care of him. And now it's like everybody's taking care of her. 

00:13:26 Linda Robinson 

And she was self-sufficient. 

00:13:28 Linda Robinson 

More we've really we've not helped. I guess that's what I'm saying. And I think I truly believe exactly what you're saying. 

00:13:37 Whitney Romine 

I I wouldn't say that at all about you, but I'm sure that your presence has helped you know, just the fact that you care and that you're being involved and that you're thinking about these. 

00:13:43 Linda Robinson 

Right, right. 

00:13:45 Whitney Romine 

Things and just. 

00:13:46 Whitney Romine 

That presence is so, so important, and that's that's what animals do for us, too, you know, human or animal presence, the the people. 

00:13:53 Whitney Romine 

Or beings that are important to us, having them in our lives is such an amazingly protective effect, and it also reduces a lot of risk factors like social isolation and loneliness. You know, she knows that people and animals care about her care about her well-being. And that's so, so important that all of that eventually rolls up into just improve quality of life, a life worth living that. 

00:14:13 Whitney Romine 

People enjoy and look forward to. That's so. 

00:14:16 Linda Robinson 

100% and then you know you also talk about stress and anxiety, I think of my mom with a cat sitting on her lap and she's maybe crying about my dad or something. But she's petting this cat as it purs. And then, you know, that just really, that's that, just really calms her mood and helps her relax. 

00:14:35 Whitney Romine 

Yes, some people feel safe with with animals in a way they sometimes don't with humans, so it it gives them a moment to just stop and catch their breath and. 

00:14:36 

Simply you should. 

00:14:43 Whitney Romine 

Just interacting with an animal is its own form of mindfulness. If you think about it, you're sitting there thinking about how soft their fur feels. You're sitting there listening to the like you said, the purring noise. You're getting a lot of sensory stimulation, but not too much, just enough to kind of bring you back to the present moment. 

00:14:53 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:15:00 Linda Robinson 

In fact, there are nursing homes that actually have stuffed cats that purr, that they'll put on people's laps. And hey, if it works, if it's helpful, you know that's that's just such a such an interesting way to help that person relax when they're so agitated. 

00:15:21 Linda Robinson 

Describe for us the impact of animal, human animal interaction at you know for your patients and your providers at the Mayo Clinic. I'm sure you have a ton of stories and we honestly could sit here for 10 for 10 hours, I am sure, but it it's it's such it's such an interesting topic. 

00:15:42 

Thank you. 

00:15:43 Whitney Romine 

Yeah. So I I was really blown away coming to Mayo Clinic. I moved here from out of state. So this is kind of a new experience for me and I'm I'm kind of learning the culture of Mayo as an outsider coming in and I was so, so impressed and so blown away with the just enthusiasm and exuberant love that Mayo Clinic employees have for the caring. 

00:16:04 Whitney Romine 

Lines and all of our therapy animals and. 

00:16:06 Whitney Romine 

I get calls all the time of, you know we. 

00:16:09 Whitney Romine 

Have somebody who? 

00:16:11 Whitney Romine 

Is really struggling with a stressful event or I have a patient who could really benefit from this. So what I see a lot in in all the calls that I get in the emails and all the requests. Is this kind of ultimate purpose sense of purpose that we are? We're all working together and it kind of gives them a sense of. 

00:16:29 Whitney Romine 

You know the needs of the patient come first and and this is something that could reach my patient when nothing else can. So there's there's that sense of unified purpose between our volunteers and our employees. But I think it's also we see a sense of safety connection and. 

00:16:45 Whitney Romine 

What I really enjoy most is seeing that sense of agency. We've seen the incorporation of therapy animals into treatment activities, help patients kind of take their power back when they come into a healthcare facility, especially some place. 

00:16:57 Whitney Romine 

Like Mayo, where? 

00:16:59 Whitney Romine 

They're coming to us because nobody else could help them. Typically they have no answers. We're kind of for many patients. We're kind of their last stop like. 

00:17:07 Whitney Romine 

If Mayo Clinic can't figure it out like nobody can, and so there's kind of this sense of helplessness. 

00:17:13 Whitney Romine 

Of ohh my gosh, am I going to make it through and so when we incorporate and partner with our animal friends and and help. 

00:17:19 Whitney Romine 

People ground themselves. Give them hope again, or just give them somebody to connect to. We create all these and we we reestablish that sense of safety, even if it's just in the moment. It allows them to kind of think like I can do this. And so we've had some examples of situations where clinicians. 

00:17:36 Whitney Romine 

Had patients who were struggling with procedures because, you know, when you're really sick or you're injured, sometimes procedures hurt or they're uncomfortable. 

00:17:44 Whitney Romine 

Because you have to endure that for a little while in order to get better. And so the presence of the animals has helped patients get through. Sometimes they'll do it for the animal because they're motivator, but sometimes the animal just helps them find strength inside themselves, which is just really amazing. And I've heard so many stories about patients who would not. 

00:17:55 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:18:03 Whitney Romine 

Do treatments. 

00:18:04 Whitney Romine 

Mm-hmm. Would then do them for the animal. So for a lot of staff watching their patients enthusiastically complete procedures is. 

00:18:11 Whitney Romine 

A cup refiller. 

00:18:13 Whitney Romine 

And it's a sense of like I'm I'm doing the right thing, I'm helping my patients. I'm doing everything that I can for the to meet the needs of my patients. 

00:18:23 Linda Robinson 

It's wonderful. So I think some of the other comments you had mentioned to me that patients had said this made my day this high will sustain me for the next six months and that has got to really make you and your staff and the nurses and the doctors just feel like they could conquer. 

00:18:44 Whitney Romine 

Ohh yeah, it's our volunteer. My volunteers will tell me like, This is why I volunteer is for comments like that. If I get one of those at the end of my shift, I am satisfied for the day. 

00:18:55 Linda Robinson 

Yeah, that's amazing. Something else that you told me when we were talking the other day that I found incredible was that you have Mayo doctors, but you all had also have Mayo doctors. 

00:19:12 Linda Robinson 

And I I would love to see one of those Mayo doctors that is so exciting. Tell us a little bit about that. Who thought of that terminology? 

00:19:22 Whitney Romine 

Ohh gosh that was. 

00:19:24 Whitney Romine 

I can't remember exactly how it how it happened, but I remember one day I'm working and one of my teams comes in to visit. 

00:19:30 Whitney Romine 

And I notice they're. 

00:19:32 Whitney Romine 

All of our dogs have ID badges like our Mayo Clinic employees too, and they they look identical, except it has a picture of the dog and it has. 

00:19:39 Whitney Romine 

Therapy dog Daisy or therapy dog Lily or whatever the dog's name is. And so one day they come in and there's this little hang tag hanging off of the ID badge, and it says. 

00:19:49 Whitney Romine 

Doctor and I. 

00:19:50 Whitney Romine 

I just burst out laughing and I said where in the world did you get that? I'm like, you can't have gotten that from global. 

00:19:56 Whitney Romine 

30 and they were like, Oh well, we found it. And they're like, what do you think? And I'm like, well, let's. 

00:20:02 Whitney Romine 

Let's see what happens. 

00:20:04 Whitney Romine 

Because I thought ohh it could go either one of two ways, like somebody could be concerned and and feel that it's not quite the right messaging or somebody could just take it for what it really was. It was just a a humorous. 

00:20:16 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:20:17 Whitney Romine 

Kind of distraction conversation starter. And so that's really what it has become. And so then suddenly, you know, two caring canine teams have it and then four caring canine teams have it. And I was. 

00:20:27 Whitney Romine 

I was it was pretty. 

00:20:28 Whitney Romine 

Funny, I was pretty amused, but I'll never forget the one day I was with one of my caring canine teams that had the Doctor tag and we get it. We're in an elevator and some doctor gets into the elevator with us and I thought ohh boy, here's the test. Right? And so the doctor, you know, pushes the elevator button. He kind of stands there and all of a sudden he glances over and he looks over at the dock and he sees the tag. 

00:20:49 Whitney Romine 

And you just see. 

00:20:50 Whitney Romine 

The corner of his mouth turn up. 

00:20:52 Whitney Romine 

And he's like, huh, that's cute. And I was like, alright. 

00:20:57 Linda Robinson 

It passed. 

00:20:57 Whitney Romine 

You know, yes. And so then the Lindsey and Rye story came out recently on the Mayo Clinic News network that was talking about how she and her dog, rye, have really helped a patient that was had epilepsy. And so they the the title of that article was Doctor and. 

00:21:14 Whitney Romine 

Doctor, help patient. And I thought, well, now it's a. 

00:21:18 Linda Robinson 

Ohh that is great. That is great. So I believe it is, uh, mags and Molly that are or one of the IT might be Molly or mags. I'm not sure. 

00:21:28 Linda Robinson 

That's involved in a a clinical. 

00:21:31 Linda Robinson 

Stroke study. 

00:21:33 Whitney Romine 

Yeah. So we have a couple of volunteers, Susan and Phil and their two dogs, Mags and Molly. They're both Yorkies, and they're adorable. 

00:21:42 Whitney Romine 

So they are participating and partnering with our research team to do a stroke rehab, animal assisted treatment study. And so it's a really neat study where they're looking at information about the the outcomes of for patients, how successful are they, how motivated are they to complete their treatment. But they're also what I really appreciate about this as a dog. 

00:22:03 Whitney Romine 

They're also studying the effect on the dogs, so one thing that's really been important in this field, a lot of the studies have focused on the welfare of humans strictly. So now there's a lot of calls for what we also need to be measuring and evaluating the the welfare of the dogs. And so the study is, is starting to attempt that. So it's a. 

00:22:24 Whitney Romine 

Mayo Clinic rigorous study that's been through all of the hoops that the studies need to go through in healthcare, but they're also we also have a a veterinarian that's a part of that study. 

00:22:32 Whitney Romine 

Team and he's measuring some UM biophysiological markers. He's studying like cortisol, for example, to look at stress response in the dogs. And he's kind of evaluating that response. And after the the treatment is completed. 

00:22:48 Linda Robinson 

That's really interesting. My husband used to train cadaver dogs and it was always they were always very. 

00:22:55 Linda Robinson 

Careful and watchful of the dogs when they were when they were searching amongst the rubble or the rocks or whatever, because if the dog didn't find anybody, the dog would get depressed. So the dog had to have rests and you couldn't work them for too long because they would get depressed and they would be sad because they didn't. 

00:23:16 Linda Robinson 

And you know a person, which, I mean that just really I'm a dog person too, and that just makes that just makes me tearful to think that that dog, you know, is really trying so hard and and would be much like us. We would be very upset if we couldn't find somebody. So. 

00:23:35 

So we're. 

00:23:36 Linda Robinson 

It it's just. 

00:23:36 Linda Robinson 

It it's just amazing. So you're talking a lot about dogs. So are there other animals that you typically are involved with your program or that do a lot of animal assisted services work? 

00:23:52 Whitney Romine 

So in most healthcare organizations in the United States, I feel pretty confident saying that the majority of programs are strictly focused on docs and Mayo Clinic was that way for a long time. This year, we have explored adding a miniature horse to our roster. So you may have seen some of the stories. 

00:24:12 Whitney Romine 

Because he became kind of a media frenzy, uh, his name is munchkin, and he's a miniature horse that has dwarfism. So he actually, in addition to being a miniature horse, he's a little bit. I I like to tell people he's a little bit smaller than small. 

00:24:25 Whitney Romine 

But he also has a deformity in his spine and his legs and some things, so we have to make a lot of accommodations so that he can enjoy his visits. But we've really seen him start to approach people and really seek out engagements and interactions. So that's been a real joy to watch. So he's our first, actually, our second miniature horse at Mayo Clinic. 

00:24:45 Whitney Romine 

Many of our Mayo Clinic cites the first uh was Baron. He's a miniature horse that does not have dwarfism. He's a full healthy. 

00:24:53 Whitney Romine 

And so he visits at Mayo Clinic Hospice, which is another service that Mayo Clinic offers. And he goes to patients homes where he goes to assisted living wherever he's approved to go. He works very closely with Mayo Clinic Hospice coordinators. Hospice is outside of my scope. But I talked to my partner over there all the time and they have some really awesome visits with their, their residents and patients as well. 

00:25:14 Linda Robinson 

I bet the families as well when you think. 

00:25:16 Linda Robinson 

About it, well, any. 

00:25:17 Linda Robinson 

Department, the hospital. Everybody's frightened, everybody's. 

00:25:21 Linda Robinson 

Uncertain. Anxious about what's going to happen. And so then you you also talked about before pet partners registers 9 species of animals. 

00:25:32 Whitney Romine 

Yes. So pet partners is a national nonprofit organization that registers and provides training for therapy animal handler teams. I am a member of PET partners myself. I was an animal handler. Unfortunately, my my current dog is is not a a registered team. 

00:25:51 Whitney Romine 

She, after we moved to Rochester, she just decided that other dogs were not for her. So we can't get through the neutral dog. 

00:25:57 Whitney Romine 

Size. So I'm like, oh, well, maybe maybe it's time to give her a little break. You know, the pandemic was pretty rough because we we passed our tests right before the pandemic, and then we got a couple of visits in and then. 

00:26:09 Whitney Romine 

Yeah, that ended pretty quickly. But anyway, so I'm also a team evaluator. So that means that I am somebody who will host evaluation events. I will run potential themes through a series of exercises where I measure their skills and aptitude and then I give them feedback to help. 

00:26:27 Whitney Romine 

In their therapy animal handler journey, so if they're not ready that day, I might give them some ideas of places they can look for dog training or places that are dog friendly in the city area or just, you know, invite them to come back and test again. And I give them their score sheet so they know what to work on. If they want to consult a doctor trainer and if they pass, then I guide them to the registration process. I help them. 

00:26:48 Whitney Romine 

Find facilities that might be a good fit for them and their dog. I provide support for teams, so that's really been beneficial for my role as an animal assisted services coordinator because I've gotten to see so many different dog personalities in individuals and I've really gotten to appreciate. 

00:27:04 Whitney Romine 

State how they all have different needs and strengths and weaknesses, so it's it's really important to to match those up well. 

00:27:13 Linda Robinson 

Yeah, that's neat. So the nine species that they register or what? Dogs, cats, horses, rabbits, Guinea pigs, rats. I don't know if. 

00:27:22 Linda Robinson 

I don't. 

00:27:22 Linda Robinson 

Frat bird miniature pigs. I've heard pigs are just wonderful little animals, llamas and alpacas. 

00:27:31 Linda Robinson 

That's just so exciting. Have you have? 

00:27:33 Linda Robinson 

You registered. Had you have any other animals that you've been able to register? 

00:27:39 Whitney Romine 

So as an evaluator, I've mostly worked with dogs. I've probably done less than 10 mini horses. 

00:27:47 Whitney Romine 

I think I've seen three rabbits and during my instructor or my evaluator workshop training I witnessed the evaluation of a cat, but he didn't get past exercise. 

00:27:56 Whitney Romine 

Too, but I do have a colleague at another hospital who does have a therapy cat that's in her program. That's adorable. And he just loves it so it can be done. It's just very rare. 

00:28:08 Linda Robinson 

Is there anything else you wanted to share with us about the registered therapy and animal handler team that maybe you didn't hit on before? 

00:28:21 Linda Robinson 

There's that new organization, the Association of Animal Assisted Interventions Professionals. 

00:28:26 Whitney Romine 

Yeah. So that's that's a really good. That's a new area in this field that's still kind of growing and developing. So a lot of this work in animal assisted Services got started because of volunteers who trained their own personal pets, met all these criteria, took all these tests. 

00:28:43 Whitney Romine 

This, but what we're finding over time is that there are certain professional fields where volunteers may not be the best fit. For example, like a mental health counselor who's working with patients with extreme sensitivities, maybe they were traumatized or they were involved as a victim of a crime, or they just have really sensitive information. They're not comfortable sharing in front of a volunteer. 

00:29:05 Whitney Romine 

And so there were professionals who were identifying that I have a a potential therapy animal that could come to work with me and could really be a benefit to my clients. How do I do this? But there for the longest time for years and years, there was never any kind of approving body that had any, any kind of education or certification or. 

00:29:25 Whitney Romine 

Any information so pet partners got that feedback for quite a few years of, you know, this is great service that you have for volunteers. You know, we wish you had something for professionals. And so in the last couple of years I think 2/3. 

00:29:35 

Right. 

00:29:38 Whitney Romine 

Years ago, they launched their sister organization. 

00:29:42 Whitney Romine 

The Association of Animal Assisted intervention professionals, or sometimes we also call it triple AIP, so they're kind of they're literally like a sister organization of pet partners, except their focus is professionals who want to involve therapy animals in their professional roles. And so they educate professionals on the different ways to partner with therapy animals. 

00:30:05 Whitney Romine 

And they they break it down kind of into two models. So there's a there's the diamond model where you do partner with a volunteer. 

00:30:12 Whitney Romine 

And the volunteer is essentially that person who is responsible for the animal's welfare while the clinician can focus on the patient. So that's a lot of what we do in Healthcare is diamond model because we have such complex environments that that's the best model to protect the welfare of the animal. However, there are some environments where that model may not be a good fit like I talked about before. So that would kind of fall into the. 

00:30:32 Whitney Romine 

Triangle model where there's a clinician, a therapy animal and a patient or a client. And so in those circumstances they need some extra training and support because their animals may be working longer days, they may be exposed to stimuli that volume. 

00:30:48 Whitney Romine 

Your handler dogs may not be and so there there are unique risk factors that have to be considered and evaluated, so it's it's difficult because there's so many different disciplines now that incorporate animals into practice. There's physical therapy, there's nursing, there's mental health counselors. Heck, I've even heard of some other volunteer coordinators in other healthcare organizations who are. 

00:31:08 Whitney Romine 

Partnering with facility dogs to go and visit with patients or to partner with clinicians to be that dog handler. So it's important to have resources available so AAA. 

00:31:16 Whitney Romine 

E offers online classes that are geared towards professionals who incorporate animals into their work. They also offer the certification that I carry certified Animal assisted intervention specialist and it covers several domains that are important to incorporating animals into your work and protecting their welfare. Looking for example, we also have to consider. 

00:31:36 Whitney Romine 

Chronic disease transmission risk, especially in organizations like healthcare, zoonotic disease, refers to diseases that can transfer between humans and animals. So how do we prevent those things? We have strategies to do that. 

00:31:48 Whitney Romine 

We how do we protect animal welfare so they they have courses on that. The certification covers all of those domains so that you can guarantee that you have that knowledge, but it also requires continuing education. So it takes into account that you need to keep up on that knowledge and education that every, you know, we're learning new things every day. So they're a great resource for that. But they also what made them. 

00:32:10 Whitney Romine 

Unique is that they offer liability insurance coverage for professionals that is unique for them because originally before. 

00:32:18 Whitney Romine 

Providers would have to try to work through their own clinical practice insurance or they would have to hope their organization might be willing to cover them, and some weren't. For example, schools many schools were not able to to offer additional supplemental insurance to cover these teams, so triple IP kind of filled that gap and providing insurance coverage for professionals. 

00:32:38 Linda Robinson 

That's great because it is such a unique role, but we are a long way from pet therapy of seeing the dog come through the door and smile and everybody pets the dog. I mean, you have really taken this to another level completely. So tell us some examples of animal assisted activity. 

00:32:59 Whitney Romine 

Sure. So essentially that term animal assisted kind of implies that there's some kind of structure motivation, goal involved. So animal assisted activities or as it's going to probably soon be called Animal assisted support generally refers to kind of unstructured activities, motivational goals. So some of those are just your friendly. 

00:33:19 Whitney Romine 

The average visit that you typically would see in a hospital setting, but if there's animal assisted treatment or formally animal assisted therapy, typically that's goal directed clip. 

00:33:29 Whitney Romine 

Vision guided A licensed clinician, guided so that would be something like a physical therapist involved intentionally involving an animal in a motor function exercise. So, for example, they might have the patient throw a ball for the dog, and then the dog retrieves it, brings it back, and they might then have the patient bend over, take the ball. 

00:33:50 Whitney Romine 

Pick it back up and throw it so you know it looks like you're just playing a game of fetch, but they're actually working out different arm muscles. 

00:33:53 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:33:56 Ashton Elder 

Right. 

00:33:56 Whitney Romine 

But they're they're incorporating the animal as a modality to motivate the patient to complete the activity and to work out that specific muscle group. So it's clinician guided because they know exactly what muscle groups they're working on. An animal, a typical animal handler may not have that kind of licensed clinician background unless they are the professional that is partnering with their own animal. 

00:34:18 Whitney Romine 

They're they're intentionally doing it to meet up a patient care goal. It's part of their treatment. Reading programs also can be considered either animal assisted activities. If it's just general motivation. But if there's a a teacher involved, animal assisted education, that teacher might be measuring the amount of words that that student recognizes or how fast that student. 

00:34:37 Whitney Romine 

To read that would kind of turn it into the realm of animal assisted treatment, where you have or animal assisted education where you have that licensed provider, that licensed educator who's coming up with treatment goals for that student or reading goals for that student and incorporating the animal intentionally into meeting those goals. 

00:34:47 Linda Robinson 

Right, right. 

00:34:57 Linda Robinson 

That's incredible. I can see, you know, if my arm was hurting and I didn't want to move it and I wouldn't move it for the physical therapist, I would probably move it to throw a ball for a dog, no doubt. No doubt. What is the honeybee game? 

00:35:12 Whitney Romine 

So this was actually something I discovered at my previous hospital, so I was working in a Pete's hospital before. 

00:35:18 Whitney Romine 

And during the pandemic we developed virtual animal visits as an intervention so that we could continue to keep the human animal bond going in a way that was safe for our patients. As we were navigating the unknown. Also, I did it because I was really desperate to see dogs and I didn't want to make 100,000 COVID kids a day. I just, I needed a break. 

00:35:26 

Right. 

00:35:36 Whitney Romine 

So luckily, you know, we being in a PEDs environment and and being in an environment like Mayo, you have a lot of innovators and a lot of people around you that want to try new things. And so when I I went to the IT department and I explained what I was looking for, they were like, OK, why not? We'll give it a shot. So they get, they got me an iPad, they set me up with hospital approved technology. I think at the time. 

00:35:56 Whitney Romine 

Use Microsoft Microsoft Teams because it was the only one that was met, their security, and then I I it was the volunteers honestly, that they gave me the idea they were like, hey, Whitney, there's this other hospital that's doing it. We really desperately want to help our patients. Like, can we do this so. 

00:36:09 Whitney Romine 

Like, I'll give a shot. Got the iPad recruited? The volunteers told them what we were doing. Got them signed up for training, and I probably had 1/4 of our roster sign up right away. And then, as other volunteers heard about it, doing really well, some others signed up as well. They were like, ohh, patients are actually taking really well to this. I want to get involved too. And so one of my volunteers. 

00:36:30 Whitney Romine 

Her name is Stacy, and she'll probably smile if she hears this has a dog named Bishop and he is a release dog from Canine Companions. And So what that meant was that he was trained to be a service dog, but for whatever reason, they did. 

00:36:43 Whitney Romine 

And that service animal work was not a good fit for him, in my opinion. My unprofessional opinion. It was because he was too friendly because he was kind of a goofball and he loved to socialize with people and he was very wiggly. So I'm gonna guess that maybe he could focus on his task enough because he was too social. 

00:36:55 

Right, right. 

00:36:59 Linda Robinson 

Not serious enough. 

00:37:02 Whitney Romine 

And he was he was a wonderful therapy dog. And so because of his task training, she was able to adapt some games and kind of have him play the role of the child. So she was pretending to kind of through the dog play games with the child over the screen. And so the honeybee game is kind of like one of those. It's a board game. 

00:37:20 Whitney Romine 

Where you have this tree set up and you have the sticks put through the slats and you put some marbles in the top and so she would tell the patient, you know, we're gonna play the honey bee game together. Bishop's gonna take your turn for you, and then we'll play this game together. And so she would pull out a stick and then she would say Bishop get and Bishop would put his. 

00:37:40 Whitney Romine 

Mouth around the stick, pull it out and she would say Bishop drop and so he would drop the stick and they would play the game together like that until the marbles fell out. And then at the end, whenever the marbles fell out, Bishop got lots of treats. So he loved the game. He was always very excited because our volunteers just know how to motivate their their. 

00:37:56 Whitney Romine 

And the patient was just cracking up laughing because they would love watching Bishop try to get the stick in his mouth. They would love watching him spit it out, doing all of his cues, and they would also love the end when he had a big party and he got his treats and they just, you know, no matter what the outcome of the game was, they just had a good time together. So it was really cool to watch. 

00:38:14 Linda Robinson 

The innovation post COVID is. 

00:38:17 Linda Robinson 

It really transforming healthcare, the ability to utilize pet services virtually is is just bringing such value to those patients and it's it's beyond important. 

00:38:30 Whitney Romine 

We've actually continued it here at Mayo Clinic. When I started in my role here I during my interview I had talked about the virtual visit program and my supervisor said do you think you could do it here at Mayo? And I was like, well, yeah, I just need an iPad. 

00:38:42 Whitney Romine 

So literally she. 

00:38:43 Whitney Romine 

Just pops one of my and I was like, oh, you wanna start this like? 

00:38:47 Whitney Romine 

Tomorrow. Right. And so, uh, you know we we talked to some stakeholders and so umm, she actually got me in touch with a nursing council that was trying to come up with some interventions for they had a group of at risk patients that were needing some additional activities to stimulate them and and help them socially connect. And so I mentioned the virtual animal visits. 

00:39:07 Whitney Romine 

And they were like, Oh my gosh, this would be great. There were several of them that had patients that were in isolation or patients that had other restrictions where a live animal visit would be contraindicated, meaning that it wouldn't be safe for either the animal or the child. And so they thought the virtual would be a really good alternative. And so. 

00:39:24 Whitney Romine 

I partnered with child life and I partnered with nursing and we came up with some potential units for me to visit and so I took the iPad and I got a couple of volunteers. And Susan is one of. 

00:39:34 Whitney Romine 

Those volunteers that. 

00:39:35 Whitney Romine 

You were talking about before, who very enthusiastic champion and adopter of the idea. 

00:39:41 Whitney Romine 

So she was actually one of my first volunteers that was doing and I think I only had two that signed up. 

00:39:46 Whitney Romine 

I had Susan and Phil, Mags and Molly, and I had Jane and Cole and Benny Burrito. 

00:39:52 Whitney Romine 

Sign up to do virtual visits and so it was a raging success. I was shocked because I thought post pandemic the kids are gonna look at me like I'm crazy. Like no, I don't ever want. 

00:40:00 Whitney Romine 

To see an iPad ever again. But I would walk in the door. Knock, knock. I'm Whitney. I have virtual animal visits, and at first they were kind of like what? And I said it's like a it's like a FaceTime call with our therapy dogs and they just you just watch their face light up. They were like, yeah, bring it over. 

00:40:15 Whitney Romine 

And they just enthusiastically connected with these these teams and I I have to give all our credit to the volunteers because they are just masters of. 

00:40:24 Whitney Romine 

Befriending almost anybody as soon as the screen came on, they were like, hi, my name's Susan. I'm so excited to meet you today. 

00:40:26 

Right, right. 

00:40:30 Linda Robinson 

Right. Just the ability to bring somebody into that room for stress reduction, mood enhancement. 

00:40:36 Linda Robinson 

Social interaction, especially if you're in isolation, especially a child. Yeah, but that is that is amazing. And having spoken with Susan, I can just see her beaming through the television to that child or the iPad or whatever, you know, display that you utilized. 

00:40:56 Linda Robinson 

For that patient, that's just absolutely amazing. We are running out of time, but. 

00:41:04 Linda Robinson 

What safety measures are in place to ensure the well-being of both the animals and the people interacting with them? 

00:41:12 Whitney Romine 

That's a great question and it's kind of the crux and the. 

00:41:14 Whitney Romine 

Importance of of. 

00:41:16 Whitney Romine 

A role like my own in healthcare organization. And so a really good resource that a lot of healthcare organizations already use is the society for Healthcare Epidemiology Association guidelines for animals and healthcare institutions. Some people know them as the shade guidelines. 

00:41:31 Whitney Romine 

It's a really good starting point for just, Oh my gosh, I'm trying to write a policy. I'm trying to start a program. Where do I start? If you're in healthcare, start there because they really just do a great job of outlining the groundwork, like the base minimum requirements. You have to have an. 

00:41:39 

Right. 

00:41:46 Whitney Romine 

Program. So a lot of other programs in addition to the shade guidelines, will include components of having requiring an annual veterinary exam and sometimes twice a year, depending on the the animals exposure level or age. But generally at least annual and keeping them up to date on required vaccinations and vets will keep an eye on any disease surveillance going on in their communities to make sure. 

00:42:07 Whitney Romine 

The animals are protected. 

00:42:08 Whitney Romine 

We usually recommend that animals are bathed within 24 hours of a visit. However, usually accommodations are made because if you bathe in, let's say, an A therapy animal, visits 3 * A week, you cannot bathe a dog three times a week because you're going to irritate the skin. They're gonna shed more. They're gonna potentially have hot spots. You're you're essentially putting them at risk of more. 

00:42:18 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:42:22 

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

00:42:28 Whitney Romine 

Or disease or injury. So I always tell my teams, you know, talk to your veterinarian if you're visiting multiple times a week, because really for the health of the animal generally, it's not recommended to bathe an animal more than once a month, maybe twice a month if they're visibly soiled or something. But it really should be kept to a minimum. And then every dog's coat type and skin type is different. So I always tell my teams, talk to your vet. 

00:42:28 

Right. 

00:42:49 Whitney Romine 

Find out what grooming and bathing and keeping your animal clean will look like for them. Sometimes there are Chlorhexidine or like animal safe sanitizer wipes. Sometimes there's a dry shampoo that can do the effect too, but just making sure the animals are clean. 

00:43:03 Whitney Romine 

And the most important, the one we always preach in health care, is hand hygiene. You know, washing your hands before and after petting animals eliminates a large majority of the risk of zoonotic disease transmission, as well as keeping both humans and animals safe, just like the humans, we have animals call off when they're sick or injured, or even if there's a sudden, weird behavior change. 

00:43:23 Whitney Romine 

I once had a situation where there was a dog that air snapped at a as a staff member and he'd been in our program for 12 years and it was really unusual. He had never done that before. 

00:43:32 Whitney Romine 

And the handler took him to the vet and they found out that he had slipped disc in his back. 

00:43:36 Whitney Romine 

And it was causing him pain. So they got him treatment. They got him pain meds, they got him doggy chiropractic. 

00:43:42 Whitney Romine 

I don't they. 

00:43:42 

Right. 

00:43:43 Whitney Romine 

It's amazing and it's totally different dog. He went right back to the the bubbly, bouncy pup that we're used to. So if you see weird behaviors in your dog, like they're suddenly avoiding things or they're suddenly shy. 

00:43:53 Whitney Romine 

Talk to your vet. Eliminate health risks. 

00:43:56 Whitney Romine 

1st and then you know we actually. 

00:43:57 Linda Robinson 

And again, you are keeping a very close eye on these dogs and as are their handlers. 

00:44:02 Whitney Romine 

Yes, so handlers are educated and empowered to advocate for their animal. Part of that is studying their body language. Part of that is redirecting people when they get a little too handsy or a little too excited. You know, sometimes people will rush your dog, so it's about being comfortable saying. 

00:44:13 

I'm trying. 

00:44:17 Whitney Romine 

I'm so glad you're excited to see my dog. Can I have you have a seat over here and I'll bring. 

00:44:20 Whitney Romine 

Up to you. 

00:44:21 Whitney Romine 

Right. 

00:44:22 Whitney Romine 

And then of course, my role I think is really important, not necessarily me personally, but having a person within an institution, especially one that is human health centered, whose primary objective I always tell my volunteers the rest of Mayo Clinic, the needs of the patient comes first. But me, my role here, the needs of your dogs come first because your dogs can't speak English. 

00:44:43 Whitney Romine 

They, you know, they need you and I to advocate for them. So while the the volunteers are the experts in their own animals and they advocate for their own individual animals, I'm the person who is looking at that global picture and saying, how do we structure our, our our program overall to make sure that it's friendly for animals in general. So I'm advocating for the handlers and their animals on an institutional level. 

00:45:03 Whitney Romine 

And consulting on policies and procedures that are going to affect them and what they do here at Mayo Clinic, I'm making sure we align with best practices. 

00:45:11 Whitney Romine 

I'm bringing information into the organization to educate handlers and clinicians, telling them, you know, please don't do this to volunteers. You know, please give these these benefits to volunteers or please, you know, make these these arrangements so that volunteers feel comfortable and safe for their dogs, feel comfortable and safe. Please don't ask them to do these types of things. So lots of education. 

00:45:30 Whitney Romine 

Cultivating structures that promote positive animal animal welfare. One example that I received was when I was. 

00:45:38 Whitney Romine 

In a previous hospital I I was asked, you know, Whitney, it's really important that therapy animals only visit patients because that's the focus of this program. And I pushed back on that and I said, no, I I don't think that's something that we should be pushing for because the animals benefit from friendships with the humans as much as they benefit as the humans benefit from them. 

00:45:58 Whitney Romine 

And so if we take that away, so I've seen in so many hospitals across my career, dogs eventually develop friendships with the humans that are in the hospitals and some, you know, they have that like, it's like seeing your best friend at work. And so if we take that away from the dogs, that stable person who's not sick, who's not a stranger, somebody they know, they can rely on, that's a guaranteed safe space. If we take that away. 

00:46:20 Whitney Romine 

I think it harms the animals welfare, so I feel like. 

00:46:24 Whitney Romine 

Any relationships that those animals develop need to be cultivated and supported, as long as everybody's safe in the interaction. But I I that's why I said I fully support our therapy animals, visiting staff as much as patients because everybody benefits from that, including the animals. So that's a really important piece there. So then handler, education competence. 

00:46:43 Whitney Romine 

And patient safety, all of those things come together. And so that's kind of the focus of what I do is I'm the person that, that ties it all together and makes sure that the animals are part of that conversation. 

00:46:54 Linda Robinson 

Wow, that's amazing. And I have to tell you as a as a nurse of over 35 years, when I worked in the emergency room in the ICU, when we saw the animals come on to the unit, it just really it. It lifted my day. It lifted all of our days. So one, it made you feel good. But two, you know that the benefits that your patients were going to receive. 

00:47:14 

So how do? 

00:47:15 Linda Robinson 

The staff express interest. How do they? How do they? How do they? 

00:47:20 Linda Robinson 

Arrange a pet visit. 

00:47:22 Whitney Romine 

Yeah. Uh, so one thing I really like about Mayo, I they are really great at utilizing their technology to streamline processes and make things easier and. 

00:47:30 Whitney Romine 

So it was kind of unique to me, but they actually can put in orders in epic for animal assisted. I'm gonna call IT support here. I did put in a name change request they used to call it Animal assisted therapy. So they started thinking that I was this therapist that had a dog at my desk. And I would just go deploy. So we're doing a name change, animal assisted support. So they understand that these are volunteers that are providing. 

00:47:51 Whitney Romine 

It's but so they can put in an order. Animal assisted support, an epic, and that list comes, comes to me. And there's a big master list and it puts all of the patients information together in one place. And so then I can communicate that back out to our volunteers through the volunteer portal. There's an electronic portal where I can essentially post the request list. 

00:48:10 Whitney Romine 

It's just room numbers, so there's no Phi, but the volunteers know where the requests are, but the nice thing about this epic list is it updates in real time, so I'm not sending a volunteer to room 123 if they don't show up on epic, or if the patient gets discharged, they come off the list automatically, so I don't have to wait for a a unit to call me to say ohh the patient was discharged. 

00:48:10 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:48:30 Whitney Romine 

Or volunteer to go up to the unit, find out the patient was discharged, come back and tell me, and then take them off the list. I get all these. 

00:48:36 Whitney Romine 

Updates in real time, which is just awesome. Sometimes they will call me if there's a special circumstance. If the patient is perhaps actively dying. 

00:48:38 

That's great. 

00:48:44 Whitney Romine 

And the family member would really benefit in the moment, so I can check and see if there's a team here or if there's a special circumstance and they're not sure if it's safe. 

00:48:51 Whitney Romine 

For a dog, I. 

00:48:51 Whitney Romine 

Always invite them to call me and we talk it through. But generally that's the process here is they just put in an order. 

00:48:58 Linda Robinson 

That's great. I have in the past in patient engagement technology set up. 

00:49:04 Linda Robinson 

Like a library of the the Animal volunteers so that patients could get on their smart TV and choose which animal that they would like to have visit them. So I have done that in the past and that was a lot of fun. And the animals pictures came up. And again that was integrated with the Emma. 

00:49:21 Linda Robinson 

So if the patient was discharged, you know that they would go off the list. Never did virtual. However, we do offer virtual, you know, on the in room television set. So what an amazing. What a what? An amazing, you know process that you have created people processes. 

00:49:42 Linda Robinson 

Animals in technology. Ah, 100. 

00:49:44 Linda Robinson 

Percent. So as we're kind of coming to a close, Oh my goodness. You know, at Mayo, how do you choose your teams? How do you choose who who comes and is a volunteer with their their animal partner. How do you choose who gets to be part of animal assisted services at Mayo? 

00:50:06 Whitney Romine 

That's that's a hard choice. Uh, you know we. 

00:50:10 

I bet. 

00:50:11 Whitney Romine 

We we're always very careful to kind of look at, you know, to my ultimate criteria is does the animal wanna do this? You know, that's the first question I always ask, and I love one of my favorite. 

00:50:19 Whitney Romine 

Dog trainers always ask the question, how is this for you? Suzanne clothier. And so I kind of always have that in my head when I'm meeting. 

00:50:27 Whitney Romine 

A team for the first time I look at the animal and I think how is this for you? Are you enjoying yourself or are you miserable and it doesn't have anything to do with the dog skills or aptitude or goodness or baldness? I always, you know, it's like when you sign kids up for after school activities. Some kids want to do ballet and some kids want to do karate. 

00:50:45 Whitney Romine 

And same thing goes for animals. Some of them love socializing and meeting strangers and cuddling up, and some of them would rather do agility. They're like. No, no, I wanna move my body. I wanna be active. I don't wanna sit here and socialize. So those are the things that's the primary thing I look for first. So as far as onboarding volunteers as a program and as a process. 

00:51:05 Whitney Romine 

We do ask that they get registered with a hospital approved therapy animal organization 1st and that ensures that they get a baseline education about. 

00:51:12 Whitney Romine 

How therapy, animal handling and volunteering works, they get education about reading dog body language, about advocating for their therapy animals. They're they're getting evaluated by someone. They're going through a standardized evaluation process and getting registered for that liability insurance coverage protection. So once they are through that hospital approved therapy dog organization, they turn in that paperwork. 

00:51:33 Whitney Romine 

To me, they usually get some kind of either acceptance letter or an ID badge that says that they're a member, and then I have them give me a copy of their vet forms so that I can make sure they're up to date on vaccines and that they're generally physically. 

00:51:44 Whitney Romine 

Healthy. And then I I bring them through the volunteer onboarding process. So it looks very similar to many organizations. We have an application, we have an interview process where I talked to the handler first without the dog and I kind of talked to them about tell me about your dog, what's your dog's personality like? And I asked them a few questions about, you know, what kind of people does your dog seek out? What kind of activities do you? 

00:52:04 Whitney Romine 

Do you notice where your dogs eyes light up? What? What are your dogs? Stress signals. How do they tell you when they're done? 

00:52:09 Whitney Romine 

What's their limit? And so I kind of see where they're at, if they can tell me that if they can't, then I I know that something I need to work on with training them. So depending on what they tell me, unless they tell me like ohh my my dog's afraid of. 

00:52:21 Whitney Romine 

Men or children, you know? Then I maybe suggest to them. Uh, maybe your dog might not be ready for this yet. Maybe you want to. 

00:52:27 Whitney Romine 

Start somewhere less stressful than a hospital. 

00:52:29 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:52:30 Whitney Romine 

But you know, generally they come to me, they kind of get the idea that their dog needs to be. 

00:52:35 Whitney Romine 

I'm really enjoying this kind of work and generally pretty adaptable, so I'll bring them through the process. Typically I start with an orientation where I meet them and their dog and I just walk them around the public areas of Mayo and I just get. It's a baseline evaluation. We don't visit people intentionally now, like if somebody stops us in the hallway, if the dog is seeking out and approaching. 

00:52:54 Whitney Romine 

I'll encourage the handler like, yeah, go ahead and let them visit and. 

00:52:57 Whitney Romine 

Let's watch, and if you notice that your dog's getting stressful. If you see anything, we can just get him right out of here. 

00:53:03 Whitney Romine 

So we kind of keep it very minimal and and just make sure the dog's comfortable in the environment in general, if the dog does pretty OK and most of them do, then I'll get them paired up with some of our experience carrying canine volunteers. They'll shadow, they don't have their dog with them because it's really hard to think for two people simultaneously and learn new things at. 

00:53:20 Whitney Romine 

The same time. 

00:53:20 Linda Robinson 

Right, right. 

00:53:21 Whitney Romine 

That way they get used to Mayo Clinic. 

00:53:23 Whitney Romine 

They they know where things are, they kind of start to get to learn the processes. 

00:53:27 Whitney Romine 

They also have an online self learning that we've just implemented that they can do with their own pace. They can read information as well. So we have multiple methods of learning available to them and at the end I do a supervised visit as many as that team needs and I go with them on visits and their dog. I go with them to patient care units and I observe their dogs behavior. I give them coaching and feedback and I. 

00:53:46 Whitney Romine 

You know, I'm noticing XYZ behavior in your dog. Tell me what that means. Does your dog need a break? Let's go for a potty break. Let me show you where that is. So I go through all of that with them until they feel comfortable and ready for independent visiting. 

00:54:02 Linda Robinson 

You have created quite the department. I now know why everybody said you must talk to Whitney. It is just truly amazing the work that you've done and the meaningful connections and bonds between animals and patients and staff that I know that you have been. 

00:54:22 Linda Robinson 

A huge part of the innovation and the transformation of pet therapy at Mayo through your guidance is. 

00:54:29 Linda Robinson 

It's just, it's just truly amazing and I thank you for everything that you do. If there's one thing that we didn't get to talk about that you would like to share 1 Pearl about what you do that you would like to share with us before we sign off, what would that be? 

00:54:50 Whitney Romine 

So I would probably have to say the most important value of this work is always centering the animal experience in in your role. And sometimes when we we run into trouble, or when we run into hiccups, it's usually because we forgot to check in with the animal. 

00:55:07 Whitney Romine 

Right. And so I I always stress to anybody that's new to this field, anybody that's interested in this field, anybody that's just getting started. I had a nurse actually reach out to me from another hospital saying ohh, I'm. I'm involving my therapy animal and my work and I'm just overwhelmed with all the things that we can do. And where do I get started? 

00:55:23 Whitney Romine 

And I said, you know what? Stop from minute. 

00:55:26 Whitney Romine 

Focus on the relationship. Learn your dog. Center your dog in your experience. Start with that first. That's so, so important because everything else will flow evenly. 

00:55:35 Whitney Romine 

Really, if you have that strong foundation with your dog, if you're centered with your dog, you're connected with your dog, you're reading their body language, you're responding, you're you're asking for their consent, and you're receiving it. And and when they see that if they tell you they're stressed, you give them a break. If they see that when they are asking to do visits and they're they have, they're communicating with you and getting responses. 

00:55:56 Whitney Romine 

Needs met. They're going to enjoy the experience longer, but they're also going to have more meaningful engagements with people. They're going to have. You know, you're going to get that therapeutic effect that everybody is vying for. That's the only way that you can possibly get that therapeutic effect is if you have a positive relationship where both the needs of the dog and the needs of the patient are are being. 

00:56:07 

Right. 

00:56:16 Whitney Romine 

Met or we call that mutual benefit. So that's so so. 

00:56:21 Linda Robinson 

Right. Well, thank you so much for being with us today. I really, really appreciate it and thank you for all that you do. 

00:56:28 Whitney Romine 

Oh my gosh. You know what? Thank you for all of your kind words, but it really is all about the teamwork here. I'm so grateful for my colleagues who are helping me learn Mayo Clinic every day that are pointing out resources to me that I didn't even know existed. I always tell people I feel like I moved to Eureka, that town from the sci-fi TV show where, you know, everybody's a PhD and they have all this great innovation and knowledge. 

00:56:50 Whitney Romine 

But also our volunteers, our volunteers, are so, so incredible. They are. 

00:56:55 Whitney Romine 

So hungry to do more, do better serve our patients in new and unique ways. I mean, they inspire me every day when they call me with their stories I. 

00:57:02 Whitney Romine 

Just I. 

00:57:02 Whitney Romine 

Cry all the time. 

00:57:04 Whitney Romine 

Because they just they, they, they, they do incredible work. They are really transforming healthcare and creating these experiences that I think it it transforms a patient's story. You know when they go home and they get to talk about. I had to go to Mayo Clinic. 

00:57:18 Whitney Romine 

Because nobody else could cure me, they get to come home and they get to say I met a dog, you know, like they they and they can talk about the the dog's trading card and they can talk about all the dogs characteristics and traits and it it. It transforms the narrative. And that's powerful. Being able to have that kind of narrative that you can share. It's empowering. You don't feel bad about yourself, but you also feel like a natural connection to people. 

00:57:22 Linda Robinson 

Right. 

00:57:40 Whitney Romine 

Because they all wanna ask. Ohh. What kind of dog you know they it starts style. There's so many benefits that just it's like a ripple effect and it's it's amazing. 

00:57:48 Whitney Romine 

So I I really I can't take all the credit I have to. I have to give a shout out to my team here and volunteer services. Even the gift shop. Amazing, amazing teamwork. So even places that you would not think would work together here at Mayo or in any healthcare institution. You know there's so much teamwork and camaraderie and everybody pitching in to come up with newer and better things and. 

00:58:08 Whitney Romine 

It's it's really true. The more diverse mindsets and people and ideas you have, the greater you can make a service or the greater the the outcome that you can achieve. 

00:58:19 Linda Robinson 

I agree 100% and I will add that we are having Susan and Phil on the podcast with Mags and Molly. And I said I must have a picture of Mags and Molly. She goes, you know what, nobody ever wants to see Phil and I anymore. They only want pictures of Mags and Molly. And I'm like, well, we'll take a picture. 

00:58:37 Linda Robinson 

Of you guys too, I'll never forget. 

00:58:39 Whitney Romine 

So I got hired at my last hospital. I actually started there as a volunteer 1st and then I got hired a couple of years later and I'll never forget, I went to HR orientation. 

00:58:47 Whitney Romine 

And we're sitting in an auditorium and there's, you know, probably 20 or 30 of us. All of a sudden somebody stands up and they point at me. And they're like, oh, my God, you're mocha's mom. That was my. 

00:58:57 Whitney Romine 

Second therapy. 

00:59:00 Whitney Romine 

I was like what? Oh, oh, hey, you know, like, they recognized me from volunteering because of my dog. And it's so true. What the volunteers go through. And and I experienced that personally. So it just made me laugh. And then. 

00:59:13 Whitney Romine 

A couple months later, an employee walks in from another department and she says, Oh my God, I remember your first therapy dog, Roxy and. 

00:59:19 Whitney Romine 

I was like. 

00:59:20 Whitney Romine 

Oh my God. You know Roxy had passed away. She was. She was my heart dog. That was like a born therapy dog. And I'm very careful when I use that term, but really. 

00:59:27 Whitney Romine 

Like she just. 

00:59:29 Whitney Romine 

Totally, enthusiastically consented every time. Like she literally ran downstairs. 

00:59:34 Whitney Romine 

Woke me up out of bed and dragged me to my car. Every Saturday at 10:00 AM because she loved volunteering like she came and got me. It wasn't me going. 

00:59:43 Whitney Romine 

To get her so. 

00:59:43 

Right, right. 

00:59:45 Whitney Romine 

And so it was. It was so touching for that employee to come back to like, oh, my God, Roxy was such a great dog. 

00:59:50 Whitney Romine 

Dog, I think that's what our volunteers enjoy the most is those connections and those moments of of like you. Your dog made a difference for me. Your dog made a connection and your dog helped me through one of the worst times of my life. And that's kind of that moment that I had. So I can appreciate where the volunteers come from when they tell me those stories. And you know, I. 

01:00:08 Whitney Romine 

Just I love to make more of those. 

01:00:10 Whitney Romine 

Experience has happened for them. I love to help facilitate those kind of connections for them here with other staff and patients. 

01:00:17 Linda Robinson 

I think that is something about healthcare. Most people get into it not from what they get out of it, but what they can give. But then at the same time as you give, you are just so filled. 

01:00:31 Whitney Romine 

That's the truth. That's really. I think that's the perfect way to summarize it, because you don't expect the experiences that that come upon you. But man, like when you when you go home at night, that's what refills your cup. That's what makes you feel like, yeah, this is. 

01:00:45 Whitney Romine 

This is what it's all about. 

01:00:47 Linda Robinson 

Right. And it's the little things. It's not the big things, you know, it's holding someone's hand. It's. 

01:00:51 Linda Robinson 

That it's just being able. 

01:00:53 Linda Robinson 

To be there in that moment and provide them care, warmth, comfort. And that's so very important. 

01:01:02 Whitney Romine 

Yeah, I agree. 

01:01:04 Linda Robinson 

Well, Whitney, thank you so much and thank you for your team 100%. 

01:01:09 Whitney Romine 

Thank you. It was. 

01:01:10 Whitney Romine 

Such a pleasure to be here and talk about my, my passion and my love. 

01:01:15 Linda Robinson 

All right. Well, everyone, that's listening. Keep an eye out for Whitney's podcast. And Mags and Molly soon to follow. So thank you so much. Have a great day. 

01:01:28 Ashton Elder 

Thank you for listening to PX space For more information, head to our website at journeypdx.com. And don't forget to subscribe to our monthly newsletter.