This issue is about welcoming the New Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Center of New England to the greater Boston veterinary community. It's VESCONE only much better!

Our practice is fueled by the bond that you have with your clients and their pets. Our mission is to be your partner, working together as a team to make sure healing and restored health is the success story that each client can relay to you when they talk about VESCONE. We want to be the only 24 hour referral hospital that works seamlessly with you and your clients in diagnosing and treating your patients.

In some market research that I participated in recently, I learned about what you, as our referring veterinarians want in a referral hospital like VESCONE. I learned about what you think we do well and what the areas are that you want to see improve. This information was invaluable and we have spent the last several months working hard to bring you the added services and doctors we needed to be able to provide multi-modal service all under one roof.

You like that we have a caring and skilled staff that show concern for your clients.

You are pleased with our accessibility with regards to communication whether it is by e-mail, phone or fax.

You are also looking for a wider selection of specialists and wider availability of services.

As many of you know, as of this month, Vetcision is no longer a tenant in our building and is no longer providing surgical services during regular appointment hours as they were.

VESCONE has a new Surgical Department. We have hired on 2 surgeons, Dr. Steven Fish and Dr. Mary Ann Nieves as well as several excellent surgical nurses, one of which is certified in anesthesia and is a licensed physical therapist.

Dr. Fish has been working with us doing emergency surgery for several years and Dr. Nieves is leaving her post as Head of Orthopedics at Iowa State. Together they will make a team unparalled as they bring their combined expertise in soft tissue and orthopedics, dentistry and advanced pain management techniques to VESCONE.

Dr. Lynel Tocci from Angell will chair our Emergency & Critical Care Dept. Her expertise in transfusion medicine will be useful as we get many calls from you for blood and plasma from our blood bank.

Dr. Jennifer O’Sullivan, from Tufts, is joining our current radiologist Dr. Leslie Schwarz in October as a second full time radiologist. We can now offer more extensive coverage in outpatient and inpatient imaging of all types including ultrasound, digital radiography, CT and soon, MRI!

We are excited about offering you outpatient and inpatient MRI as we will be partnering with Companion MRI to provide MRI services at a much more reasonable cost and with greater accessibility than perhaps any other hospital in the area. This means MRI can be a more widely used imaging tool while also being more cost effective to your clients.

In addition, VESCONE is planning to open an in-house physical therapy and acupuncture service to complement our current and new services.

All of our other current services, including Internal Medicine, Ophthalmology and our affiliation with NEVOG are still going strong and growing with your support and referrals.

One of our newest alliances is our work with the Animal Rescue League of Boston. We are taking our community outreach to them with a series of First Aid Classes for Pets with a donation to benefit the ARL, as well as being the hospital that will see their rescued patients brought in by their law enforcement staff.

We will have fast and easy online referral forms and lots of new information. You can find out more about this, our new Surgery Department and all of our upcoming changes on our website – check us out.

Our connection with you is what makes this hospital and our practice. We recognize the importance of the human animal bond and we’re proud to be a source of the care needed to foster it.

The way I see it, a strong sense of commitment is everything in this business. We need to be a strong hospital to be able to demonstrate our commitment to you. We are hoping that you will see the new VESCONE in the same way.

- Amy