The NC State College of Veterinary Medicine — Attraction in Raleigh

I STRONGLY URGE anyone considering bringing their pet to NC State Veterinary hospital to reconsider. My experience with them was beyond horrific and my only desire is prevent others from having to go through a similar affair. I will always regret that the last few hours of my horse's life were spent in their care. My horse was brought to them due to colic. I was displeased with the the staff and felt they did not fully explain what they were doing for him and I had to continually ask for explanations as to what steps they were taking and received curt responses. Then once he had been placed in a stall and administered drugs the vets told me I had to leave the facility despite his critical and concerning condition. Calls were made to request that I be able to stay and see my horse and denied. I was told I could wait in the lobby which was far removed from where my horse was and was not able to see him. I informed the staff that I would be in my car in the parking lot. I stayed there the entire night and did not receive any information on my horse and was not able to see him. Around 5 A.M multiple calls were made to check his condition and answered by a vet tech who did not provide any information (she refused to even tell us if he was in stable condition or not), yet said the vet would return my call shortly. AN HOUR LATER- the vet returned my call and told me that they did not have any definitive information but said that she would not be able to keep me updated on his condition nor could I see him until more tests were performed. I understood that further testing would take awhile and decided to return to my apartment which was a half hour away to change since she impressed upon me that it would be long before I could see my horse. A half hour later when I arrived at my apartment I got the call that they have decided that he was not going to survive and said I could now see him. Infuriated that they did not communicate properly I rushed back to the hospital. When I was approximately 15 minutes away the vet called asking how far away I was- at this point I asked if he was in distress and she told me he was not (which I truly believe to be a lie due to the condition he was in when I arrived). She called again when I was 8 minuets away and said to prepare myself for how he would look again failing to provide relevant information about his condition. When I got to the hospital I could not believe the state my horse was in. His stomach was swollen to horrific proportions, he had been drenched in ethanol, which they told me was because he developed a fever that I was not informed about until then. His eyes seemed engorged and he was shaking violently and his breathing was so labored I was disgusted. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR ME NOT BEING ALLOWED TO SEE MY HORSE UNTIL HE WAS IN THIS CONDITION NOR ANY EXCUSE FOR THE VETS TO BE SO INCOMPETENT AT COMMUNICATING MY HORSE'S CONDITION THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT. When I arrived they said he had had a fever and they had performed an ultrasound and had seen fluid which lead them to believe his intestine had ruptured. NONE OF THE INFORMATION I RECEIVED WHEN I GOT TO THE FACILITY WAS GIVEN TO ME BEFOREHAND. They waited until he was in the most deplorable condition to allow me in and to update me. When I got there I rushed to my horse to pet him and instead of allowing me to comfort my horse the vet immediately began to harass me about needing to sign for and perform his euthanization. Instead of allowing me proper time to privately say goodbye to my horse, a crowd of about three people hovered around either in his stall or in the doorway. With no prior information they immediately asked me to decide what to do with his remains without being given options to think about beforehand. I feel his euthanization was rushed and that I was deprived of the opportunity to say goodbye properly to my beloved horse. As we have had to hospitalize this horse before elsewhere we know what good care and good communication look like, I confidently feel both things were absent from NC State...

I've waited a few months to post this since I was extremely emotional after losing my pup and reflecting on anything regarding his care was too difficult, so I wanted to now take the time to review the great folks at NC State Veterinary School (emergency and critical care, as well as the social work department).

Without getting too far into the details, note that my boy was very ill. Being a senior, and ill, I was distraught with making sure he get help. We had already been to both VSH-Raleigh and VSH-Cary and after spending a s*it- ton of money, because obviously that's what you do when your pup is your child, he was worse, and they discharged him to go home with me as if it would all just work out (both VSH Cary and raleigh location are in separate reviews) but I digress....

He worsened as soon as we got home from VSH and they didn't want to help anymore, so we opted for NC State vet school. When I arrived at NC State Vet School (from now on referred to as NCSVS) I immediately felt at ease as they triaged him and got to it to make him feel better. I know we were in great hands and regretted not going to NCSVS first.

The entire care process was critical, heartwrenching, but also professional and top quality. This place, since it is a vet school, they have access to so much research and testing that no other vet emergency facility in the state has. I felt that my boy had nothing but the best offered to him.

All of the doctors, residents, and staff were so supportive and since I was there so much during his care, knew me by name and all would tell me updates as I walked in the door. Their level of care superceded my expectations, and anything I had experienced before.

Unfortunately, my boy took a drastic turn for the worse during his illness, and I utilized the services of NCSVS for his passing. Again, no deets as it's too difficult, but they seemed to be as heartbroken as I was, yet professional and sympathetic to the unbearable pain it is to lose a loved pet. They abided by my wishes of his passing, and did some things that I asked that were perhaps unorthodox for them, but I didn't want his passing to be in a sterile environment, so I'm grateful they helped us through all of that.

NCSVS also offers grief counseling and therapy sessions through a human - animal behavior specialist, Jeannine Moga. I utilized this service, and was so grateful that this was an option for me.

There is just no way to state how wonderful these people are. From the front desk, the vet staff, residents, assistant, even the accounts payable - they just all seem to really care about you and your pet.

So, why the 4 stars? The only reason, though it was huge to me, was that after my boy's passing, I received a call from a female (assuming a student) asking how Pharrell was doing. (Pharrell was my boy's name). I was gutted since the wound was so raw. I couldn't even imagine how this could happen. I kindly informed her that he had passed away, and that she needed to update her records. I told the staff what happened, they were apologetic, but it is something that is terrible after being in such a terrible situation with losing your furbaby. I worry they have students just go off of a list and call to check on pets who are not there when this should be done by someone on the care team who knew what was going on.

The ending is, if I need extended testing, or critical care for another pet, I will always go to NCSVS for treatment. I recommend them to every pet parent I know, even though I am no longer directly in the pet industry, from one pet parent to another, don't hesitate to use their services should you...

Our recent experience with the NC State Veterinary Hospital was horrible and resulted in the death of our dog. Our dog was being treated there from October 2017-February 2018 for cancer. She had a tumor removed and then had radiation treatment. The cancer treatments were successful and she was expected to make a full recovery. However, a couple weeks after radiation ended she started limping and had horrible pain in her back legs. We admitted her to the hospital at the end of Feb. 2018. She was there for 5 days and looked at by several departments. They told us she had sciatic nerve pain and sent us home with pain medications. A week later when she hadn’t improved and could not even stand up, we took her back to the hospital. They had misdiagnosed her. She did not have sciatic nerve pain but instead had contracted a MRSA Superbug. The infection was lodged in her spine. Our personal vet (who has 30+ years experience) told us that she almost certainly contracted the infection at the hospital during her cancer treatment. In light of this, we asked the hospital to please help us cover a small portion of the bills. At this point we had already spent about $20,000 on the cancer treatment and were only asking for them to comp some of the exam fees (about $2,000). We requested multiple times to speak to either the Hospital Administrator (Jim Brawley) or the Associate Dean (Dr. Steven Marks) regarding this matter. Neither of them contacted us. Instead, they sent one of their subordinates to call us. She told us to put our complaint in writing, so we sent them a certified letter asking for this small financial help. We asked her 2 times on the phone to please have one of them contact us. They never did. The infection was ultimately untreatable and we had to euthanize our dog. The hospital administrator did not call us back until 1 week after we had to put our dog to sleep. This was 1 week after he received the certified letter – probably the only reason he called. He was cold and curt on the phone and did not even offer condolences for the loss of our dog. He simply stated the hospital was conducting an investigation and we would hear back in 1-2 weeks. He also said he’d place a hold on our account and we would not receive any more bills until the investigation was complete. Two weeks later we had heard nothing back, but we did get a bill in the mail for $3400. A week after that, we got a letter in the mail from the hospital administrator stating they were not reimbursing us anything and that we needed to pay the final $3400 bill in full. In their letter, they kept denying our dog contracted the Superbug at their hospital. Our dog had only been to NCSU vet hospital during her treatments and not been to a dog park, boarded, or on any off-leash walks in the months leading up to her death. These facts strongly suggest the infection was hospital-borne. The hospital administration is cold, callous, and unwilling to work with clients and only care about the bottom dollar. To this day, the Associate Dean, who we specifically asked to speak to, still has not contacted us. The only contact with the Hospital Administrator was a cold, 2 minute phone call. They went 3 weeks without taking so much as 5 minutes to give us an update on the investigation, but they did somehow find the time to send us a bill, even though they told us we would not receive a bill during this period. Please keep this in mind when deciding where to take your beloved pet for medical care. There are better and cheaper alternatives...