Animal Assisted Therapy and Trauma Survivors.

Animal therapy is making strides in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For years, animals have been used with great benefit in the treatment of the aged and the terminally ill. Now animal assisted therapy is benefitting sufferers of PTSD. The results of animal assisted therapy in the treatment of PTSD patients have seen significant results. In one study of the effect of dogs with patients, psychologists noted an 82% reduction in symptoms. One particular case noted that interacting with the dog for as little as one week, enabled a patient to decrease the amount of anxiety and sleep medications by half.

Participatory evaluation of a community-academic partnership to inform capacity-building and sustainability.

The Tampa Bay Community Cancer Network (TBCCN) was formed as a partnership comprised of committed community based organizations (grassroots, service, health care organizations) and a National Cancer Institute designated cancer center working together to reduce cancer health disparities. Adhering to principles of community-based participatory research, TBCCN's primary aims are to develop and sustain outreach, training, and research programs that aim to reach medically underserved, multicultural and multilingual populations within the Tampa Bay tri-county area. Using a participatory evaluation approach, we recently evaluated the partnerships' priorities for cancer education and outreach; perspectives on the partnerships' adherence to CBPR principles; and suggestions for sustaining TBCCN and its efforts. The purpose of this paper is to describe implementation and outcomes of this participatory evaluation of a community/academic partnership, and to illustrate the application of evaluation findings for partnership capacity-building and sustainability. Our evaluation provides evidence for partners' perceived benefits and realized expectations of the partnership and illustrates the value of ongoing and continued partnership assessment to directly inform program activities and build community capacity and sustainability.

The role of veterinary medicine in an interdisciplinary family health course.

First-year students from five health professions colleges engaged in a team-taught interdisciplinary family health course located in a community-based setting. This descriptive account of their experiences describes the implications of interdisciplinary education for student learning with an emphasis on the health care concerns of the volunteer families and their companion animals that participated in the Interdisciplinary Family Health course. The authors underscore the potential of interdisciplinary course work for the enrichment of the educational process, with collaboration between veterinary and other health professions, including the disciplines of medicine, nursing, nutrition, pharmacy, physical therapy, dental, social work, and the larger community, by providing an emphasis on family health and companion-animal care.

A historical overview of interdisciplinary family health: a community-based interprofessional health professions course.

The Interdisciplinary Family Health course at the University of Florida Health Science Center is a course for beginning health profession students designed to teach core values, such as community-based family health, health promotion and disease prevention, and teamwork in the context of home visits. In addition, the course provides a valuable service to volunteer families by helping them identify useful community resources, and by formulating wellness care plans for prevention of illness and stabilization of chronic illness. In this article, the authors describe the historical development of the course, which began as a grant-supported pilot course for 20 medical students in 1996. After several additional grants helped fund an expansion involving other colleges, the course was given institutional support in 2001 and currently includes over 400 students and 70 faculty from four colleges working to improve the health status of over 150 local volunteer families. The theoretical constructs and objectives of the course were developed collaboratively by dedicated faculty from five Health Science Center colleges over seven years. In addition to benefiting the community and students, the course has encouraged an atmosphere of collaboration among faculty and colleges that has been a tangible benefit to the academic health center. The development and continuing support of this course demonstrates that barriers to such efforts can be overcome by dedicated faculty and administration.

Evaluation of access, a primary care program for indigent patients: inpatient and emergency room utilization.

We analyzed the impact of a program that provides indigent patients with free primary care on inpatient admissions, emergency room (ER) visits, and resulting charges in 91 patients before and after admittance into the program. There was a decrease in ER visits after enrolling in the program (1.89 versus 0.83 visits per year; p < 0.0001). This difference translated into mean ER charges of $1,174 vs. $717 (p = 0.0007), and a decrease in charges of $41,587 per year. The charges for the program (outpatient visits and laboratory) were $23,141. Entry into the program had no effect on inpatient admissions, which averaged 0.07 admissions per year both before and after admission to the program. Indigent patients enrolled in a complimentary primary care program had significantly decreased per-year ER utilization rates and charges. The program had no effect on inpatient admissions. By conservative estimate, the program decreased ER charges by approximately $18,000 per year secondary to decreased ER utilization.