Straight Shooting from Dr. Mitchell: Preventative care vs. "fixing what's broke"

LOOKING BACK AND LOOKING AHEAD IN 2006…
From all of us at Knollwood, best wishes for a healthy year to you and your furry friends! The year of 2005 represented another BIG step for us in exploring new ways to stay in touch with all of you, new ways to help you better care for your animal friends, and new ways to make sure that we are always available for you when you need us. Here are some of the steps we initiated in late 2005 and are expanding upon in 2006:

Website development is ongoing. Knollwood Nurse/Webmistress Kelly Ryan, soon to be on maternity leave, has been coordinating website development and will soon take this over as her main task. I hope you all are enjoying our site. Those of you who know a bit about website design can appreciate all the time and effort Kelly has taken with the Knollwood site. I know that we certainly are impressed with the job that she has done! Our website will allow us to quickly update you on medical advances and care for your pets. Kelly has developed several ways for you to share news about your pet with us, too, in our Celebrations and Memories sections of the website.

Last year, we gave a great deal of thought to how to make sure that we are fulfilling our vision for Knollwood. You know that our goal has always been for our hospital to be a place where you could feel comfortable that your animal friends would receive the best possible level of care from committed, dedicated medical professionals. A place where we could bring you the best of what we have learned, through diligent study, about advances in traditional and alternative veterinary medicine. A place where you would never have to feel foolish about displaying or talking about the level of commitment and devotion you have for your special animal friends.

My personal long-term goal has always been to be not just a good vet, but a great vet – the kind who is able to tell you, year after year, that your pet is still healthy. One of the reasons Dr. Boudreaux and I study alternative medicine is to teach you how to incorporate preventative health care routines into the day-to-day care of your pet. Focusing on preventative care – on how to keep your pet healthy rather than waiting to "fix what’s broke" - allows your pet to achieve a healthy and longer than standard life span. What we teach you to do for your pet, at home on a day-to-day basis, has tremendous impact on your pet’s health and longevity!

I think we’ve achieved our vision and goals. But in the process, both Doctor Boudreaux and I have seriously impacted our health by working 70+ hour weeks, each and every week. Dr. B. was hospitalized for 8 days last fall, and as I rushed around doing both our jobs, I realized that I could be next if I didn’t take the same care of myself that I tell you to give to your pets. (I also imagine that I was pretty insufferable to work for – and our staff is to be commended for putting up with me!). We now realize that we can’t continue to work this many hours and still give you the level of care and attention that you and your pets need and deserve, in the years to come.

So here’s what we did: We looked at what we love to do most – teaching people how to keep their pets healthy and living longer - and we looked at how we could get that job done. We also looked at the cold, hard facts of running a business. The bottom line is, we are a preventative health care business and we need to concentrate our efforts on the folks who are supportive of our business – that’s what pays the bills and allows us to have such an outstanding, educated support staff and Doctors. So we evaluated how we could-- in a reasonable 50 hour work week- concentrate our resources on the folks who have been supportive of our hospital’s successful focus on preventative pet health care.

We decided to emphasize our care for those who share and support our vision of pet healthcare, by focusing on preventative care for their loved pets. Who are those people? They are the ones who make sure that they see us at least once every year, more often if they have a senior or health-challenged pet. The ones who choose to support our business with their health care purchases. The ones who don’t hesitate to pick up a phone to talk to a Knollwood Nurse when they have a question about their pet’s health. The ones who make no bones about adoring their pets and give them OUR top-notch care to prove it. Folks like these are the ones that we love to work hard for! So, a certain percentage of our clients – those who utilize us only or primarily for emergency care, or who choose to not have their pets seen on a yearly basis - were sent a respectful letter advising them that we would not be able to care for their pets any longer, unless they were willing to have their pet seen at least annually. It was a hard letter to write, but it’s the only way to make our vision of total health care for our patients a reality.

We are re-doubling our efforts to make sure that those who support us are rewarded by our availability when you have a worrisome situation that you feel needs to be evaluated same day or soonest availability, whether it is an appointment that is needed or a consultation with a Nurse. We have scheduled extra "immediate/same day care" slots in each day’s schedule, and we charge accordingly for such care. Our Receptionists and Nurses have received further training to be able to take your telephone questions to a Doctor as soon as she is out of an exam room, so that you can get an answer faster from a Nurse. (We know that you understand that our Doctors see patients all day and can’t come to the phone when they are examining a patient or doing surgery).

Many of you know that we have been looking, for over a year, for a Doctor who shares our vision for Knollwood and who has high goals for professional excellence. We have yet to find her or him (there is a nation-wide shortage of veterinarians, and it seems many vets would rather work at a clinic that is not so involved in their patients’ care!) but we’re continuing the search. We know that all things happen at the right time – we just hope it‘s soon! Until that time, Dr. Boudreaux will continue to be our surgeon and will continue to lend her assistance with seeing patients, so that we can keep you as happy as possible with our commitment to preventative health care.

From all of us to all of you – we wish for you a healthy and blessed year full of all the things that please you and your family, including your dear furry ones, the most!