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Happy and Healthy, A Letter From Dr. Hawk

April 14, 2020

Here at Commonwealth Vet, we consider ourselves very fortunate to be an essential service and be open to care for your pets' needs. To keep our staff and clients happy and healthy during this time, we've made several changes to our procedures, and I wanted to take a few minutes to make you all aware of some of the changes you'll notice when you come to visit us. Although these changes affect the way we communicate with you during appointments, please know that the compassion and care your pets receive has not changed. We are simply taking every precaution to reduce any opportunity for this virus to impact either our staff or our clients.

About a month ago, we transitioned to no longer having our human clients in the building and added additional sanitization practices to our daily routine. We've always had our building sanitized at the end of each day, so that has remained unchanged. However, we've also begun sanitizing all door handles both inside and outside our building regularly throughout the day to aid in keeping the facility germ free. In addition, our staff wears masks and gloves to limit our exposure to one another, and we sanitize our hands after each pet we handle. We've also arranged an area just inside the front entry door to enable you to pick up your pet's food and prescriptions without having to come into contact with our team or be exposed to other clients.

Until social distancing recommendations have been relaxed, we will continue operating with only our staff and our canine and feline patients in the building. Because of this, we find ourselves using our outgoing phone lines much more than we normally would. We are currently using our phones to communicate with clients when they arrive, take medical histories, and discuss treatment plans. As a result, our phone lines may give you a busy signal far more than we would like. If that is the case, please be patient with us. If you do not wish to hang up and try again in a few minutes, you're more than welcome to email the front desk at frontdesk@commonwealthvet.com with non-emergency requests and we will respond as soon as possible. We've added an additional staff member to our front desk support team to help us process your requests as quickly as possible by phone or by email. 

Despite these changes, we still offer all our usual services, including dental procedures and other surgeries. For your safety, we have redesigned our drop off procedures to limit both staff and client exposure to one another. As a part of these changes, we've eliminated the need to sign estimates and procedure authorization forms in order to minimize physical contact and keep everyone healthy. Instead, surgery estimates can be emailed directly to you prior to your pet's arrival, and we are happy to answer any questions you may have about the procedure by phone. We understand that this time of reduced contact can be difficult for everyone, and are always happy to answer questions. If you would like a doctor to call prior to your pet's procedure, please just let us know. We want you to be comfortable with any surgical procedure being done. We know that the day of surgery can be a stressful day for clients, and we want to do everything we can to minimize everyone's stress. 

Through all of this we are committed to providing the best care possible for your pets given the current circumstances. Our commitment to the safety of our staff and our clients has never been higher, and our entire team has remained healthy. We hope the same for all of you.

Love to all.

Dr. Hawk