(Photo by Stew Milne/AP)

You've probably heard by now about Oscar, the deathbed cat -- the one who has a knack for knowing who's going to die next at the Rhode Island nursing home in which he lives.

He's had that ability since kittenhood, and has presided over the deaths of more than 25 residents on the third floor of Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, where physicians and staff consider him an almost absolute indicator of impending death.

Oscar  -- though he sounds like something Stephen King might dream up -- was brought to the public's attention by the New England Journal of Medicine, in a piece written by Dr. David M. Dosa, a geriatrician at Rhode Island Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University in Providence.

It starts like this:

Oscar the Cat awakens from his nap, opening a single eye to survey his kingdom. From atop the desk in the doctor's charting area, the cat peers down the two wings of the nursing home's advanced dementia unit. All quiet on the western and eastern fronts. Slowly, he rises and extravagantly stretches his 2-year-old frame, first backward and then forward. He sits up and considers his next move ...

You can read his entire piece here.