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Former Nursing faculty member's endowment to support animal-assisted therapy

Denton native Karen Friedsam Duncan established a program endowment supporting the integration of animal-assisted therapy into nursing education at TWU. She chose to support the program because “it is at the intersection of two of my lifelong loves — the field of nursing and the power of pets in healing.”

Friedsam Duncan received her nursing degrees from the University of Texas and the University of North Carolina. After graduate school, she taught pediatrics and community health at TWU’s Houston campus for several years. Later, she and her husband, Tom, moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Friedsam Duncan worked for the University of Utah Hospital for more than 20 years before retiring in Texas. The endowment will provide funding to introduce nursing students to the benefits of animal-assisted therapy for their patients.