MAKING THE ROUNDS WITH OSCAR
David Dosa
Headline - NZ$29.99

Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.
Story in New Zealand Herald - Feb 2, 2010


Right - Oscar at Steere House where he comforts dying patients. Photo / AP

Dr David Dosa was sceptical when he was told that Oscar, an aloof cat kept at a nursing home, regularly predicted patients' deaths by snuggling alongside them in their final hours.
Dr Dosa's doubts eroded after he and colleagues tallied about 50 correct calls by Oscar over five years, a process he explains in a book released this week, Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.
The feline's bizarre talent astounds Dr Dosa, but he finds Oscar's real worth in his insistence on being present when others turn away from the taboo subject of death.
"People actually were taking great comfort in this idea, that this animal was there and might be there when their loved ones eventually pass," Dr Dosa said. "He was there when they couldn't be."
Dr Dosa, 37, a geriatrician and professor at Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, works with patients with severe dementia.
It's usually the last stop for people so ill they cannot speak, recognise their spouses and spend their days lost in fragments of memory.He once feared that families would be horrified by the furry Grim Reaper, especially after Dr Dosa made Oscar famous in a 2007 essay in the New England Journal of Medicine. Instead, he says many caregivers consider Oscar a comforting presence, and some have praised him in death notices and eulogies.
The full story at NZH.
Footnote:
My review copy of this book arrived just a couple of days before the above story appeared in the NZH. The book is a moving, sometimes funny sometimes sad account of Oscar, Dr.Dosa and his patients which allows the reader to gain an insight into a world not often seen from the outside.
I note that the author has dedicated his book "To the families and caregivers of dementia patients everywhere". This seems appropraite as much of the book is about grief and loss and also of the guilt often felt by those who have to put loved ones into rest homes.