I've got a poll topic, about the kind of vet practice you...

[Mary Plummer]

...go to. My question comes from an article in our paper today in which our vets were featured. The article was talking about the majority of vets now practicing in multi-vet groups, as opposed to single vet practices. Our vet group is 6 vets, and they've just finished building a new facility. We haven't been there yet, but it sounds new and improved. They're now going to offer 24-hour emergency care, which just thrills me. I guess they're getting some new diagnostic equipment too, and they'll have an isolation ward for animals sick with something contagious. They're also going to get a visiting vet dermatologist to come in once or twice a week - with all of Mr. Blue's allergy and staph infection issues, this pleases me. I'm extremely happy with these vets, and they've been treating Mr. Blue since we first brought him home to Michigan. We've seen all the vets, and I like them all a lot.

[Marty]

and I don't think there are any multi-vet clinics around...I know my Vet occasionally takes on a helper...I think a lot of times it is someone just out of Vet school, but I know of one instance where it was an established Vet, who went on to locating another practice for horses in a rural town. Another one, whom I liked, is now at a Banfield hospital close by. The last one, who just loved my Winnie...I will have to ask where she went. If I remember right, 20 years ago, when we first went there, he told me something about being a teaching facility. Rack my brain...

[davet]

my typoe of practice..i left a big practice in Miami where we had the movies stars and the rich beach poeople and move up north to run a very solo practice.for about the first 7 years it was 7day a week and always on call. had to take my own emergencies except for a few timew when i got some of my local vets to cover...then we started an emergency set u7p where 7 of us formed a goroupo and so then i was only on call one night a week and one in 7 weekends but, unless i was going some place i usually took my own calls..can't think how many nights corinne and i did c- sections or how many times the kids, including that weird one helped me with emergency surgery..later on in years emergency groups were formed so i could take off when ever i wanted to..i did some in house lab work which covereed most of my dagnostic needs but also sent blod and guts away for moree analysis...it almost got to the point that i could be pretty sure of a diagnosis as soon as the pet got on the table--not always right but the majority of my paatients got well...which probably meant they wern't treally to sick to begin with........so there, my practice s=was strictly solo but more fun and less worrisome then the multi guys around me...i referred a lot to them --i was probably not as busy as i should have been but i sure had a lot more fun and less headaches......although my migrains stopped allmost the day i retired....coincidence.......end of epistle

[Mary Plummer]

...burden you with all of my Mr. Blue worries and questions Out of all the vets, there IS one that I kind of like the best. She is the one who first saw Mr. Blue, thin and scrawny and heartworm-positive, and treated him. What I like now is her honesty with me - out of all the vets in the group, I will trust her judgement on critical issues affecting Mr. Blue. If she went solo, I'd probably follow her. But there's a lot to be said for the convenience of the group - they see patients on a walk-in basis, and it is nice to be able to get a whole variety of opinions without having to go elsewhere. And it's reassuring to me to think that, once their emergency care opens, Mr. Blue will get to be seen by vets who have his records and know him and his history.

[Traci]

But there's a lot to be said for the convenience of the group - they see patients on a walk-in basis, and it is nice to be able to get a whole variety of opinions without having to go elsewhere.

Unless you work with them, HA

[davet]

up and say "hey Doc, when can i bring sammy over" so right off the bat i knew who it was and say how bout 25 minutes...so it was allmst walkin with the exception when i was doing surgery -between 11 am and 1 pm...orthopedic surgery was kinda tough when i rammed a pin through the femur and then rthrough my hand...but affter a while a "real" orthopod set up so could refer to him, had a dermatologist for referral, an optholmologist who made clinic calls etc. so my patients were pretty well covered..in fact now when i go thhe my volunteer job at the hospital, i check over the patients names to see if any old clients are coming in and every so ofte i see a familiar name...then i gotta think, did i kill their pet or was it a successful relationship...so far so good, even get some hugs from the older women now...course the nurses don't do that but i accept alll that i can get.

[momPaws]

I would prefer vet like Davet (just like I wish I still had a Dr. like him).
The practicioners of my age - they were the best. We had a doc who when my mother had a stroke- would "stop by for coffee" , check her out, never charge. He was a saint...loved that man..he was so good to our family. To him - medicine was a way of life and a way of "ministering" both physically and emotionally to his patients (friends).

I do go to a vet practice now cause have to, but only see Honey's special vet- who has a lot of those qualities. Think the world has changed too much.

[k9Karen]

The vet practice I use now has 4 vets. When I began taking my dog there (only Mickey then), there was only one vet. A couple of years later, he added one more, and they worked together for at least 5 years before adding #3, a woman - new graduate (at the time) of UF vet school. A year or 2 after that, they "took in" an older vet who was nearing retirement and had his buiding taken and destroyed for a road widening project. He has since retired and new vet has just started - haven't seen him yet. I saw vet #2 for the first time last week, and although I've heard great things about him, I wasn't that impressed. He is supposed to be an ultrasound expert and really good with "weird" diagnoses. I guess a simple UTI bored him. Vet #4 was the one I liked best. He was a 'davet' - very personable, only did what was necessary (never felt he was padding the bill like I did with this last visit) and was very easy to talk to. He rarely worked on the days I needed to go in, so I've most often seen vet #1 or #3. Vet #3 I like very much, but I think she has cut back her hours some - seems like she's never there either. She had twins a while back, so I've sure she's very busy at home. Vet #1 is a very good vet, but he's somewhat moody - sometimes he's very talkative and easy to talk to, other times, I feel like I'm being rushed out.

This practice has enlarged the building a couple of times and now offers many diagnostic services that single vets can't afford. In fact, Vet #3 told me that's what sold her on going into practice with time - they had the most toys!

The best vet I've ever had was when I lived up in the FL panhandle. He was a solo vet and just loved my Leah.

[oconnorjoy]

I use a single vet office and am very happy with the service they provide. This clinic just opened and is very well equipped. I do hope that she ends up hiring an associate eventually to cover when she needs to be away.

[jdf]

we use a two vet clinic for our cats and both vets are very good. Before Roxy became paralyzed ( also coincidentally before we had cats), we took her to a large "hospital" with 14 vets where service was only so-so and expensive. One of the owners of the practice made a couple of pretty serious mistakes with Roxy (mis-diagnosing lymphoma and epilepsy - the first mistake caused us to have an incredibly worried time until pathology reports came back for which he never even apologized for. the second mistake was a shoot from the hip DX of epilepsy without tests of any kind (this was before we knew any better) and it doomed Roxy to be on Pheno for the last 6 years of her life which kept her liver inflamed. When she had the FCE, this upscale fancy hospital was no help at all. We started using home care vets(2) for Roxy - both are one vet practices and the best vets we've known. In my experience, smaller is definitely better.