East Side Animal Hospital Fights for the Indie Vets

When Dr. Natalie McShane opened East Side Animal Hospital in fall 2024, she did so with the intent to push back on the corporate monopolization that she has seen spreading throughout the veterinary care industry in recent years. 

Dr. McShane remembers a time before health care consisted solely of conglomerates, a time when your doctor likely owned a private practice and there was a more personal relationship. Names like Novant, Atrium or CaroMont have come to dominate the health care industry, and more recently the trend has extended to veterinary practices. 

According to CARE for Pets, an American pet-care customer advocacy group, nearly one in three general veterinary practices in the US were owned by corporate consolidators as of 2023, a 300% increase since 2017.

This corporatization can lead to an impersonalized experience and higher costs for customers. An August 2023 report published by the American Veterinary Medical Association found that “veterinarians working in corporate practices reported feeling more pressure than those in private practice to generate revenue and see more clients per shift.”

Located in the Meridian Place shopping center that’s home to Hawthorne’s Pizza and Edge City Brewery on Monroe Road, East Side Animal Hospital is a private practice that aims to offer a stress-free environment for staff, customers and pets. 

“I really feel like our hospital is trying to bring back a different type of care that you don’t really find in many places,” McShane told Queen City Nerve. “Where the staff knows your pet, the doctor knows your pet. We spend 30 to 45 minutes with you. You’re not rushed. You’re not just another number. A lot of our clients, we get to know very closely. We know their families, they know our family.”

McShane said she was inspired by the differences in experiences she witnessed in comparing her own childhood pediatrician with the offices she visits as a mother today. She has taken what she learned as a patient and mother to patients and implemented changes based on level of care in her own veterinarian practice.  

“Because I own this place, it’s like my baby, and I want everything to be perfect for our patients and our clients,” she said. “It’s a different level of personalization, because it’s me vs. the corporate, it’s just a little different. Nobody really has a real tie to the place.”

How a near-death experience birthed a business

Caring for our animal friends was not always the path Dr. McShane envisioned for herself. As a junior in college in New York, she was preparing to attend law school when she took a part-time job at a vet clinic, an experience that inspired her to shift gears completely. 

She fell in love with the work. Her mentor, a bond-trader-turned-veterinarian, advised her to take the leap and there was no looking back from there. 

After graduation, McShane simultaneously took classes at four different colleges to complete her prerequisites over the course of a year, then attended veterinary school in Grenada for three years. 

Upon graduating in 2014, she was forced to work in corporate medicine as jobs in the veterinary care field were scarce. She was able to get her foot in the door by volunteering for relief work and taking temp jobs at different veterinary hospitals as needed. 

Through it all she never lost sight of her goal to open her own practice. Already a mother of one at the time, it took a near-death experience following the birth of her second child to inspire her to pursue that dream more actively.

McShane underwent a cesarean section to deliver both of her children, and while the first was successful, it was during recovery from the second that she began to feel unwell. She called her doctor, who viewed a picture of her incision and told her all was fine. 

In the end, that was not the case. (We should warn you that her description of what happened next gets graphic.)

“I looked down at my incision before I went to bed, and then all of it opened and my intestines were out,” she recalled, “my whole small intestine.”

She rushed to the hospital where, after emergency surgery, she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, a serious pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure and kidney issues, among other things.

Once she fully recovered, she decided she would do whatever it took to open her practice. 

“I was like, ‘You know what? Life is short. I literally could end tomorrow. Let me just try. I’m just going to go for this. I’m going to do it,’” she said. 

A stress-free environment for all involved

Dr. McShane’s experience with preeclampsia drives her work at East Side Animal Hospital; the focus on quality of care and wellbeing of her patients and employees is personal for her. 

Having survived her ordeal but felt like she was treated as a number rather than a person in the process, she wants to create a certain type of environment in her practice that you’re unlikely to find in one owned by a corporation.

“I think the quality of life for the people who work at private practices is better because it’s not a numbers game,” she said. “It’s a business, but we’re not trying to hit quotas, per se. The vibe is very not animal hospital.”

The staff utilizes a number of calming techniques including noise machines, pheromone sprays, toys and tons of treats. 

“Everybody comes in, they’re like, ‘This does not feel like a vet; it feels like a spa,’” McShane said. 

The environment is designed to help everyone in the building: pets, their owners, and employees.

According to a 2023 study published by Veterinary World, veterinarian practitioners and students experience higher rates of depression, anxiety and burnout rates than the general population. 

Occupational stressors reported in published studies include long working hours, client expectations, unexpected patient outcomes, communication of bad news to pet owners, high workloads, rising veterinary care costs, professional isolation, and occupational imbalance

“I want to say I know at least 10 people have killed themselves, like veterinarians, through people or other groups of people,” McShane said. “It’s a hard industry.”

Read more: CMPD Animal Care & Control Opens Satellite Shelter Amidst Crisis (2023)

By fostering an environment that is kind to everyone involved, including keeping prices down compared to corporate-owned practices, she believes she can make a difference. 

“We’re trying to make a relationship with people versus just a number,” she said, “and just make it feel like a different type of place than just a stinking animal hospital that smells like pee.”