My wife and I gave Dr. Gary Marshall and Island Cats our business for about 2 years, primarily because of the close proximity of the business to our home. We have recently taken our business elsewhere, due to our last experience with Dr. Marshall, and the real lack of integrity and ethics it exposed.
Our cat had a very serious health issue, and Dr. Marshall was nice enough to squeeze a visit with her into his schedule at short notice. However, as he later admitted, he really did not have the facilities to handle a problem as complicated as hers. So he essentially wasted our time by keeping our cat at his office for several hours while she waited to see him. To make matters worse, our cat was released to my wife with no advice or diagnosis whatsoever. Apparently Dr. Marshall was too busy to talk to my wife at that time, even though our cat was in a very serious way, and Dr. Marshall had not been able to help her. In fact, he had misdiagnosed her status, as was confirmed later when we had to take her to an emergency vet hospital.
Dr. Marshall really failed to communicate with us in any kind of timely or useful fashion, and became extremely defensive when I raised this issue with him. So defensive, in fact, that he resorted to several misstatements (okay...lies) about what had really happened and what his diagnosis had been. To add insult to injury, Dr. Marshall charged us a small fee for ""boarding"" our cat while she waited to see him. This had not been previously discussed or approved. When I suggested to Dr. Marshall that this fee might not be appropriate, he would not consider waiving it. Keep in mind that I had paid several thousand dollars in inflated fees over the course of 2 years with Dr. Marshall, with no complaint, and that I was asking for a refund of $12.50! Also keep in mind that Dr. Marshall utterly failed to alleviate (or diagnose) our cat's condition, and essentially just caused her further stress by delaying proper treatment. If I were him, I would have been embarrassed to accept any fee at all!
As I said to Dr. Marshall, everyone occasionally makes a mistake. I actually don't assume that he is an incompetent vet. It was the lack of communication, and the subsequent defensiveness and dishonesty that caused me to seek another vet. I was really quite shocked at the lack of integrity displayed.
May 24th:
Just thought I'd provide an update to my last review:
One of the things we spent a lot of money on with Dr. Marshall over the course of 2 years, was our cat's mysterious, undiagnosed limp. We must have had her examined 3-4 times by Dr. Marshall, in an attempt to get to the bottom of this, including sedating her and taking very expensive X-rays!
After we ended our relationship with Dr. Marshall, we took our cat to a new vet, who promptly discovered that one of her claws had curled back and grown into her pad. He did a minor operation to clip the claw back and dress the wound. Presto! Our cat no longer limps.
I may have to revise my assumption that Dr. Marshall is not incompetent...
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