Boston really has the worst veterinary care in America; I am comparing this to Chicago,Los Angeles, Salt lake City, Baltimore, and Atlanta as well as a number of smaller towns (Kalamazoo, MI, Urbana I... Read More
Boston really has the worst veterinary care in America; I am comparing this to Chicago,Los Angeles, Salt lake City, Baltimore, and Atlanta as well as a number of smaller towns (Kalamazoo, MI, Urbana IL) all places I have had to seek veterinary care in.But the Family Pet Hospital is the only place I have been to in Massachusetts that proves that statement wrong. Just to compare, I took my dog, Gussie to the Angell Pet Hospital in Jamaica Plain a couple of years ago. They suffered an elevated level of what I find to be the M.O. of all veterinary care in this ultimately elitist state, namely "what kind of person ARE you to be concerned with MONEY?". At which point they hand you a bill for thousands of dollars. There is a little bit of that at family pet hospital but it is not their usual way of conducting business. They really do understand how attached we Americans are to our dogs and cats, and they do put that first in all of the conversations. But they also pay attention to the life circumstances of the people whose pets they are caring for. For example, yesterday I had to bring my overweight senior citizen dog Gussie, to Family Pet because in a move clearly indicative of encroaching Doggie Alzheimers he jumped the last three or four steps from my deck to chase a deer at 12:30AM. And tore something in his right hind leg. We don't know yet what that will turn out to be. But until they can diagnose it more specifically in 2 weeks, he is on bedrest. And deremaxx, which is doggie ibuprofen. And gabapentin. Before I could get his Deremaxx prescription renewed, Gussie had to have his liver enzymes evaluated to make sure he is tolerating doggie ibuprofen well enough. Dr. Fleming (she is new, but AWESOME!!!! and Dr. Duckett is also an incredible gem! Dr. Valas, whose practice this is, is also wonderful but less warm and fuzzy and more business like.) did that bloodwork herself on-site because it is cheaper and she knows I am poor. I didn't even have to ask her. This is what I am talking about. In an economy in which 58% of all households are surviving on minimum wage jobs, in an economy in which health insurance is offered through work for fewer than 50% of all households, in a part of the country in which the average worker spends 10% of his take home wages on commuting costs, it is just refreshing to encounter veterinarians who do not assume you have the sensibilities of a wealthy widow, pampering her poodle. The care is top notch. Dr. Valas does a cool-laser treatment and autonomic nervous system treatment known as VOM. I swear I thought it was voodoo at best, or a scam at worst when I first got there. But the Angell hospital treatment had been done a year before and the beneficial effects for gussie's shoulder (he is a retired muscular dystrophy dog, who handled heavy automated wheelchairs as a companion animal to a man with Becker's muscular dystrophy) had dissipated. That treatment (not actual surgery though anesthesia was involved) cost $1100. Dr. Valas' VOM treatment achieved superior results and cost only a fraction of that. No anesthesia. Totally non-invasive. And boy, does it ever work! No voodoo! Gussie no longer limped, and this improvement has not dissipated. Am planning to have the other should done as soon as I can afford it. So. Do not go to the other places in the Boston area for veterinary care!!!! On the rare occasions when I have found myself needing emergency veterinary care, I called the 2 veterinary ERs available in the Boston metropolitan area. They deal with you in one of 2 ways. 1) you are not even connected to a human on the phone until you provide a credit card to bill questions to. They charge $65 for each question over the phone (this was the veterinary emergency room in Natick MA). Not kidding. 2) you pay $165 to walk through the door and provide $1000 via credit card for diagnostic tests (Tufts in Walpole). All creatures great and small? Not in New England, that is for sure.Family Pet Hospital does not dole out free veterinary care, but they DO help you figure out what to do within the limits of humane medical treatment and your life circumstances. They do this kindly and without judgement. It is the best place I have found for veterinary care. Certainly in Massachusetts, and quite possibly ever! Read Less