{"id":158260,"date":"2020-02-13T15:42:43","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T20:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=158260"},"modified":"2020-02-13T15:42:43","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T20:42:43","slug":"medical-alum-returns-therapy-dog-handler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/02\/medical-alum-returns-therapy-dog-handler\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Alum Returns as Therapy Dog Handler"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you think therapy dogs are coming to UConn Health with some regularity, you\u2019re right: \u201cDoggo Friday\u201d has become a weekly event at the UConn Health Sciences Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Most weeks, a different therapy dog will spend an hour in the library, offering companionship to anyone who could use a few minutes with a furry friend.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Karen Obadowski ’77 MD occasionally returns to campus with Tenley, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel, to offer comfort during UConn Health’s “Doggo Friday” events. (Photo by Kristin Wallace)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of them is Tenley, a 3-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, who accompanies Dr. Karen Obadowski, formerly Karen Magnuson, a 1977 graduate of the UConn School of Medicine and former UConn internal medicine resident.<\/p>\n

The recently retired physician has been doing pet therapy for the last 20 years, starting \u201cbefore it was considered to have benefits to it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Tenley is Obadowski\u2019s fifth therapy dog. She says she\u2019s brought them to hospitals, nursing homes, elementary schools, and college campuses, and often finds patients or students responding to the dogs as much as they do to humans, if not more.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does help people of all ages,\u201d she says. \u201cEven though the dogs are only with them for a short period of time, when you think of their situations, just five or 10 minutes of relaxation and happiness, or distraction from what\u2019s going on in real life, is really helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that goes for students and residents too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent eight years at this health center,\u201d Obadowski adds. \u201cI had many days where I wish someone brought in a dog to visit me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Karen Obadowski ’77 MD periodically returns to UConn Health, not with her stethoscope, but with her dog Tenley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":158262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-158260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-24 06:20:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/158262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158260"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=158260"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=158260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}