People like David Dosa

Oscar is a therapy cat living in the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. since 2005. He came to public attention in 2007 when he was featured in an article by geriatrician David Dosa in the New England Journal of Medicine. According to Dosa, Oscar appears able to predict the impending death of terminally ill patients by choosing to nap next to people a few hours before they die. Hypotheses for this ability include that Oscar is picking up on the lack of movement in such patients or that he can smell biochemicals released by dying cells.

Oscar was also the subject of Dosa's 2010 book, Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.