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| - My story is long, so here is an outline first, in case you don't want to read it all (but you should).
Dr. Smee. Pushed for the $2,000+ endoscopy every time I saw her. Lied about the amount of time that would pass between procedure and treatment, causing my cat to suffer. Was not available immediately after the procedure to answer questions, and was NEVER available by phone. Each person had a different reason as to why she was not there. Probably wanted me to come in for another $200 consult with each question I had. Didn't get my results until the day my cat died. Before endoscopy - said cancer treatment could extend life from a few months to a few years. After my cat's death - said, well, it would have only extended her life a few months anyhow. She is either greedy or insanely incompetent. Either way, my cat suffered for it. Most importantly, she REFUSED to acknowledge my wishes that euthanasia be an option by process of elimination of other issues and PUSHED that we must determine it was cancer first. I have had plenty of experienced vets in California who knew what cancer looked like and helped with the quality of life of my pet, not pushing to make money off of them since they're dying anyways. I hope euthanasia for people isn't legal by the time Dr. Smee needs it for herself.
My fault was reading about the great reviews for Dr. Burr, who only saw my cat for a second. Maybe Dr. Smee is her friend and she knows referrals are the only way she'll get business. Dr. Pepper is sweet, along with the front office staff. However, the whole philosophy of this clinic seems to be to push for life rather than recognize the need for quality of life when an animal is dying. The nurses need sensitivity training. All the staff needs to understand that a pet's owner is going to be stressed and grieving, and will be vulnerable to suggestion. Or, maybe they do, and that is why they push for all the unneeded procedures.
Dr. Burr is very informative. She is an oncologist there who initiated two 1/2 hour phone calls with me just to explain everything so I understood it. Unfortunately, that was all the experience I had with her before being advised to take Princess to internal medicine instead.
Communication is horrible in that office. I don't know if its systematic or just an excuse, but it certainly added to Princess's suffering. Before doing an endoscopy (a very invasive procedure) I was assured results would come back in one week. Immediately after the procedure, before my cat was even home, I was told to wait two weeks. After one week I called, and I said it would be more like three. In the meantime, my cat was very, very sick, not gaining weight, suffering from a cancer that we kept waiting on 'results' for. Had I known it would take this long, I would have more seriously considered putting her down (a very difficult decision to make as it is).
I got the results the day she died, and not even the complete ones.
Dr. Smee kept saying, "I wish" the lab was better at getting back to us.
This is not the worst of my experience.
Before the endoscopy, we did two ultrasounds to rule out Irritable Bowl Syndrome instead of cancer. I said if the results were inconclusive, I'd rather talk about how to give her a good quality of life than go through cancer treatment. The ultrasounds (which are expensive, but not as expensive as the endoscopy) were inconclusive. I was grieving and vulnerable, by myself, but still managed to ask, "based on your expertise, does it look like its most likely cancer?" Dr. Smee REFUSED to give professional insight, and insisted we had to do more tests to know for sure. It was the endoscopy, which again, is very painful and expensive (more than $2,000) that made my cat suffer needlessly during the last weeks of her life.
Also, just before she went under, I got a rushed phone call asking permission to do a bone marrow test. I felt pressured and relented. Dr. Smee should have noted this was a possibility in the consult. Her reasoning later was that she didn't want to bombard me with too much information. I still can't decide if she's a bad person, or just bad at what she does.
Upon discharge from the endoscopy, I wanted to ask her questions, but instead got a nurse that said "she's busy" and couldn't answer any of my questions. Dr. Smee managed to call my cell until I approved the bone marrow test, but was CONSISTENTLY UNREACHABLE immediately after the endoscopy and for many weeks following. Shameful. She finally called the day that my cat was dying, but even then sent me to a different doctor who didn't even look at my cat's files, saying we should do the ultrasounds all over again, while wearing an expensive watch. There were so many red flags about this place that were hard to notice when I was already in a stressed state. If someone you care about insists on bringing their pet here, be sure to accompany them.
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