College Park Animal Hospital

I have use College Park Animal Hospital for many years. They have treated my foster dogs and also my own dogs. I higly recommend Dr McMichael. He is a very experienced Veterinarian. I have never been disapointed with their services. more

One of their vets received a letter of censure from the State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners for his ""failure to identify"" my cat Smokey's heart condition. This vet took courses at the regional levels to improve his ability ""to read radiographs and ultrasounds,"" according the the letter I received dated October 29th 2009. When my pet's heart condition was missed, causing suffering and mostly likely an untimely death, I confronted the owner of the hospital, Thomas McMichael about the substandard care. Instead of owning up to the mistakes of his staff member, McMichael gave evasive and untruthful explanations and eventually became nasty. In addition, this business owner has contacted several review sites to have my and my family members' reviews removed. He consistently removes our reviews from Insiderpages. That's quite a solution to the the problem of medical errors! more

Our experience with this place has not been very good. At first things were going OK, they treated our dogs and cats, with no problems. We also had a lot of contact with them because we volunteered with PAW, which is the rescue that has its sick dogs boarded and treated there. My parents, myself and my girlfriend all walked these dogs during the day, and we were doing a lot of work with them because my parents work from home, and we were both students at the time. Sometimes, we would bring dogs from the shelter to the hospital or from the hospital to the boarding kennel. When a staff vet at the hospital missed our cat's heart disease on an X-ray, the owner, Dr. McMichael was confronted for an explanation. The failure to see the heart problem was obvious because more than one other vet saw it on this X-ray after Smokey had died. Dr. McMichael, however, chose to provide a strange explanation that an X-ray can not detect the type of heart disease Smokey had. When a more plausible explanation was sought, Dr. McMichael cut off access to the hospital premisses for walking the sick PAW dogs to all of four of us. The walking we did with them was the only exercise provided to them at the time. The hospital has cages only, no outside space for them. I didn't even know about this and showed up with a leash and collar to walk a dog, only to be thrown out by Dr. McMichael, who was saying my ""mother wants to sue"" him. My parents never sued him and so far as I know had no plans to sue him. They filed a complaint with the Vet Board because Dr. McMichael refused to be truthful about the missed heart disease of our pet, who ended up suffering because of this. He also refused to take responsibility for the mistake of his staff vet. If he acted honestly and took responsiblity, my parents might not have filed the complaint. Now, the failure to see Smokey's heart failure on an X-ray resulted in a Vet Board's formal letter of censure to the vet who missed the heart failure, which is on public record. It could have been different. This was a very bad experience: the way Smokey's care was handled and we were treated, as well as those homeless dogs that depended on our walks. A very unfortunate experience. Cons: missed diagnosis, failure to take responsibility more

Update: The veterinarian who treated our cat, Smokey, at College Park Animal Hospital received a formal letter of censure concerning his ""failure to recognize cardiomegaly and increased pulmonary interstitial pattern on the thoracic radiographs taken of Smokey on January 8, 2008."" This excerpt is from an October 29, 2009 letter from the Maryland State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners, addressed to my wife. The letter goes on to state that prior to accepting censure, this veterinarian ""participated in classes offered at a regional conference as a means of improving his ability to read readiographs and ultrasounds."" The letter from the State Board also stated that a letter of censure is a matter of public record. \r \r Clients of this hospital are still urged to to BE EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS, especially with elderly pets, who may be exhibiting signs of a heart disease. Even though one of the veterinarians at College Park Animal Hospital received this additional training, there is no evidence of any such training completed by the others, particularly the owner and the head vet of the hospital, Thomas McMichael, DVM, who apparently believes that congestive heart failure cannot be seen on an X-ray, as per his statement to my wife when she questioned Smokey's treatment. The fact that the primary diagnostic tool for Congestive Heart Failure is an X-ray is a very basic medical fact, and any veterinarian who does not know this basic fact cannot adequately ensure the safety of a pet at risk for heart disease. Pros: can't think of any Cons: problelms with honesty, integrity and competence more