Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola’s new facility dog, Joy, has been on duty for a couple of months now. The golden retriever is the newest member of the Sacred Paws Team that works alongside hospital staff to comfort patients and their families when they’re most in need.
Joy spends a lot of time in Sacred Heart’s emergency room and Level 1 trauma center — the only trauma center in Northwest Florida with the top-level designation. She’s specifically assigned to comfort adult patients and their families experiencing traumatic injuries.
“I usually take her into the trauma rooms,” said ER nurse Caitlin Broscious, one of Joy’s handlers. “I work a lot of the traumas, so after the patients are ‘resuscitated,’ meaning they’re stable and we’ve done everything for them, I will usually come in with her afterward, kind of for family support, because we do take care of the pediatric traumas in her as well.”…