I€ve been going to Above and Beyond for a year and a half. I love my cats and was looking for a vet that would give them extra special care and A&B does that. Even when I don€t have an appointment, ... Read More
I€ve been going to Above and Beyond for a year and a half. I love my cats and was looking for a vet that would give them extra special care and A&B does that. Even when I don€t have an appointment, I don€t have to wait longer than 10-15 minutes to get into an exam room. I€ve been to around a dozen vets in my life and none have ever asked whether I€d like my cat to be DNR or get CPR. That really impressed me at my initial visit. When my cats have had surgery at A&B, I have been provided with EKG readings and their vital signs (BP, SaO2, heart rate) during the procedure. I don€t know how they got a blood pressure on a cat but I love that they did.
I was also looking for consistency when I chose A&B. I didn€t want a revolving door in terms of staff turnover. In the year and a half that I€ve been taking my cats here, all levels of staff have pretty much stayed the same people. To me, this says that what goes on behind the scenes is working. If the staff are sticking around, they must be happy to work there and happy staff = happy patients.
For the past couple of months, I€ve really put the people who work at A&B through their paces. My cat was diagnosed with an aggressive and fast metastasizing terminal cancer. In trying to treat him, Dr Thomas was his main vet but I€ve seen every doctor there including the chiropractor & all have been wonderful. Dr Thomas had either discussed his case with them or left detailed notes in his chart that they read before entering the room because I never had to play catch up with the other vets. I demanded that every available avenue of pain control be explored to keep my cat comfortable for as long as possible (a lofty goal for a diagnosis of terminal cancer). When I arrived 30 minutes before closing the Friday before July 4th weekend, Dr Hardin coordinated with Dr Thomas to get a prescription for pain meds called in to a pharmacy so that my cat wouldn€t have to go without through the long weekend. When I boarded my cat one weekend, Dr Thomas HAND FED him to get him to eat € that really meant a lot to me. Dr Thomas called a radiologist and oncologist in bigger cities to explore treatment and diagnostic options for my cat. A few weeks before we knew how grave my cat€s situation was, Dr Thomas had the foresight to save the tumor she had initially removed from his shoulder so that I could later have it sent to a pathologist to find out what kind of cancer my cat had. Drs Thomas, Hardin, and Ledford were never in a hurry to get out of the exam room when I brought my cat in and Dr Ledford SAT DOWN and discussed end of life questions with me until I felt I had enough answers. I called the secretaries so often that they either recognized my voice or my number but they never acted like I was bothering them. And the technicians were always kind to my cat and said nice things about him even though he growled.
When they put my cat to sleep, they allowed me to pay in the back so that I wouldn€t have to wait in line crying in the front, they dimmed the lights to make it more comfortable for my cat, and the tech was able to get an IV started without any trouble even though I know his veins were dehydrated. The next day they sent me flowers which makes me believe that they genuinely cared about the cat that I loved with all my heart. And that was the most important thing in the world to me € they genuinely cared. Read Less