Our Mission Statement and Vision
The Pet Doctor’s Mission and Vision Statement
Our Mission
The Pet Doctor believes that the focus of veterinary medicine is the bond between people and their pets. We dedicate ourselves to our clients and their companions by providing comprehensive, state of the art veterinary care in a professional, modern environment.
Our strong work ethic is established by maintaining a compassionate and devoted staff of veterinarians, registered veterinary technicians, veterinary assistants, and kennel assistants. We are committed to client education, individualized preventive health care and the diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Our vision is for our practice to succeed through client satisfaction, personal and professional enrichment and reinvestment into the practice and community.
We communicate this mission to our clients and staff by the following:
Our doctors believe in the concept of a “bond-centered” practice. Dr. Hammerle has been an executive board member for the Association of Human-Animal Bond Veterinarians for several years and believes that the emotional care of the client and excellent client communication should be the focus of the veterinarian-client relationship. Each family is treated as an individual. Each pet has its individual lifestyle taken into consideration when recommendations for wellness care are made. Each family is offered the very best options in medical care and then their financial and ethical beliefs are considered when formulating a treatment plan. The very best options for care are made available, including supported referral to specialists when indicated.
We feel strong support from our clients, being voted “Best in St. Louis” veterinarian for two years. This contest is presented by a local pet magazine and is determined by online voting.
Our doctors work closely with local referral hospitals. We use constant consultations, daily research of books, periodicals and online resources, and the close proximity of a veterinary teaching hospital to allow us to stay on top of current research and treatment protocols. We are constantly adding new options to our in-house laboratory to allow us to have rapid results when needed, and also we utilize outside labs if that option will better serve our patients.
We focus a large amount of staff training on client communication skills. Our technician and veterinary assistant staff are empowered to make decisions to do individual things for clients that increase their satisfaction and bond them to our practice.
Each of our staff members feel supported and their individual interests and strengths are taken into consideration when job duties are assigned. We have set up many individual programs for employees to allow them to have a special project which gives them job satisfaction, an opportunity for income growth, and often offers new services for clients. One example is an addition of a puppy kindergarten class that was researched and established by one of our veterinary assistants.
We do not do boarding, but offer “medical boarding” for our many clients that are unable to medicate or care for an ill pet. We will care for the pet in hospital and give all needed medications when a client is unable to do so. We strive to search out any problems that the client is having and help them find a way to solve them. We help clients that want to do home hospice care for terminally ill pets and also work to emotionally support clients when making end of life decisions for a pet.
We have a close relationship with the veterinary technician schools in our area. We often have veterinary technician students as preceptors in our hospital. We have also served as a preceptor location for several veterinary students. The doctors feel that credentialed veterinary staff are a valuable resource for the hospital and allow them to utilize the skills that they have learned. Dr. Hammerle is also currently assisting with communication lectures at the veterinary teaching hospital.
We value the personal and professional growth of our staff. All staff members are encouraged to attend any continuing education that interests them. We have take the entire staff to our state VMA meeting. We also do multiple in-house training sessions, from pharmaceutical company presentations to client communication lectures.
Dr. Coletti is currently a surgical resident in a non-traditional residency and hopes to achieve ACVS status. Dr. Hammerle is currently attempting to become an ABVP boarded practitioner. Dr. Hogan has a strong interest in dentistry and exotic animal practice and is attending continuing education in those areas. We currently strive to practice the best medicine that we can.
We gain great satisfaction in investing in our practice and our community. We recently expanded our practice-giving us a much larger kennel space, a larger surgery suite, a puppy training area, a staff meeting room and a comfort room for client- present euthanasia. We regularly invest in new equipment to practice high quality medicine. Our community involvements include working with multiple pet rescue groups, close involvement in our professional organizations and working with local human-service organizations. We also work with human service agencies, such as Salvation Army and the St. Louis Food bank. We provide veterinary care for pets whose owners are homeless or displaced.
We believe that practicing high quality, ethical medicine along with providing care for our clients as well as our patients gives everyone in the practice a much greater job satisfaction and helps our hospital to thrive.
