San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
With new clinic, vet offers specialized care for animals and pet owners
When he was in third grade, Dr. Andrew Greller was rushed to the emergency room after a classmate threw glitter at him that burrowed painfully into his eye, scratching his cornea.
What might have been a traumatic memory he instead describes today as a “neat experience.” He was seen by an ophthalmologist who was able to “instantly take the pain away,” he said.
The visit left an impression on him. He went on to become a veterinary ophthalmologist, treating dogs, cats and other animals with conditions such as dry eye, cataracts, glaucoma and diseases of the eyelid.
He and his colleagues at South Texas Veterinary Ophthalmology — or STVO, which he has owned since 2013 — are the only veterinary ophthalmologists working in South Texas.
“The thought of helping people really is where it started,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as this for animals.’ But I really loved animals. A few years later, I discovered when I was volunteering at a specialty hospital that such a thing did exist. I met my first veterinary ophthalmologist, and immediately my world just expanded.”
In September, STVO moved from its office in Stone Oak to a new clinic named San Antonio Veterinary Specialists on De Zavala Road, which is home to two other practices: Animal Cancer Center of Texas and South Texas Veterinary Surgery. The idea is to offer clients a boutique clinic where their pets can receive specialized care.
The clinic boasts six veterinary specialists — three ophthalmologists, two oncologists and one surgeon — as well as state-of-the-art facilities such as a radiology section with a CT scanner. Its lobby and hallways feature rotating artwork by local artists; when the clinic opened, animal portraits by Elizabeth Elequin hung on the walls.
Greller, who grew up in
New Jersey, has been practicing for 21 years. He also does volunteer work, providing free examinations for Guide Dogs of Texas and military working dogs at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. He’s on the board of directors for the San Antonio Zoo, where he helps treat the animals housed there.
He recently sat with the Express-News to discuss the new clinic, the emotional toll of treating animals and what made him decide to be a vet. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: What made you decide to be a vet?
A:
I’ve just always loved animals. I was the kid that was always outside, turning over rocks, looking underneath, finding things. My parents kind of set me free to wander and explore outside. That’s probably what started my passion — just interacting with nature. I think it’s really important that as kids we spend a lot of time outside.
I thought about being a veterinarian at a young age, but I thought, “I’m not smart
enough.” I put them on such a pedestal. I didn’t think it was anything really achievable, personally. Then, as I was maturing, and studying and spending more time around animals, meeting the right people and the right mentors, I discovered that my grades were good enough and my passion was continuing to grow.
Q: Do you feel that you’ve grown as a vet over the course of your career?
A:
I feel like I still have a passion for the ophthalmology side, but also the human side — the human-animal connection and the connection that I have with my clients. I realize they’re coming in very stressed. I feel like that passion for developing that side of being a veterinarian — of being really empathetic and a good listener and good communicator, and helping my clients feel confident that we’ll find solutions — that’s been more the last 10 years or so. That really made me want to buy the business, so I purchased South Texas Veterinary Ophthalmology about 10 years ago. I’ve loved developing the team and growing the business side of things as well. I feel like I have the best of many worlds: the world of being around animals, the world of ophthalmology, the world of caring for my clients and my staff and running a business.
Q: Are there a lot of people out there wanting to become vets? Do you have to fight for a spot in one of the schools?
A:
Currently, there’s about 30 veterinary schools; at the time I applied, I think there were 22 or 23. I think the (American Veterinary Medical Association’s) plan is to increase the amount of veterinary colleges because there’s a great need for veterinarians out there right now. It’s still very competitive to get into veterinary school. It used to be a very male-dominated field, but that’s really shifted. You know, it seems like 90 percent of veterinarians now are women. So the landscape has changed dramatically.
Q: Tell me more about the need for vets.
A:
We’re lacking in all the different fields, when it comes to everything. With the amount of pets that we have in the United States, there’s a shortage of primary care doctors. There’s a shortage of specialty care veterinarians. There’s a great shortage of veterinarians when it comes to food production, agriculture-based, equine veterinarians, bovine veterinarians. Veterinarians that maybe work in industry, whether it’s for pharmaceutical companies or for the (Food and Drug Administration).
Q: How else has the field changed over the course of your career?
A:
There are more and more specialty emergency hospitals that are popping up.
It seems like there’s been an expansion of services to include people that are practicing holistic medicine — you know, that are doing laser and acupuncture and more Eastern medicine-type things. Chiropractic care.
Q: Tell me about the model you’re pursuing with South Texas Veterinary Specialists.
A:
It’s really unique. I don’t think there are many multispecialty day practices like the one that we’ve created anywhere in the U.S.
I think it fits for those who don’t want to wait at the 24hour (emergency room) clinics overnight. When they come in during the day, they can be seen in a timely fashion because they’re not being delayed by critical emergencies. My thought was, remove the emergency critical care side of things and have a practice that feels smaller, more intimate, without the chaos of an emergency clinic — a different level of intimacy, empathy, communication, expertise that you would maybe see more if you were staying at a nice five-star hotel where people know your name and address you very professionally.
The new setup allows for, I think, longer longevity within the field. A lot of veterinarians get burnt out. A lot of the staff get burnt out if they’re dealing with emergencies every day and they’re dealing with euthanasia. Hats off to all those veterinarians out there that deal with that every day, but this model allows for focused, specific learning and a reduction of the burnout factors.
Q: We’re living in a time when people refer to their pets as “fur babies.” Have you seen people’s relationships with their pets change?
A:
I think people have loved animals always. I don’t think our passion has grown, except to say that I feel COVID brought a lot of families closer together with their pets. They were just holding onto them a little bit tighter during that time, because we were all dealing with a lot of uncertainty and stress. To have specialized care now more freely accessible, I think there’s an understanding. There’s more referrals that are being made. It’s become more widely acceptable.
We’re more sought after. As our expertise has grown, as our success has grown. For example, with cataract surgery, in animals 30 or 40 years ago, it was nowhere as successful as it is now, because of our improvement in technology and surgical expertise and published scientific articles that allowed us to develop better care. I think the same can be true for all different fields of specialty care. There’s so many more options for treatment that didn’t exist before. I think people probably would have spent the same back then if there was that level of care.
Q: What region would you say you serve — all across South Texas? Or even into Mexico?
A:
Yeah, for ophthalmology. The nearest ophthalmologists are in Austin, east to Houston or Katy, south to Mexico City and west to El Paso. So it’s probably one of the largest geographic areas in the country that we serve. We’re the only group of board-certified ophthalmologists in the San Antonio area. So we see a tremendously large geographic area, which really keeps us busy. We actually see more patients from outside of Bexar County than within.
Q: You mentioned burnout. As a vet, how do you cope with the emotional toll?
A:
Seeing any animal suffer is very difficult for me. But I’ll be honest — one of the benefits of being an ophthalmologist is that you’re not seeing these terribly neglectful cases. The clients that come to see us typically care so much about their pet.
I think being a primary care veterinarian — again, I give them so much credit, because they are dealing with the more challenging cases, whether it’s abuse, neglect, the animals getting poor care, or they just can’t afford the care. Or it’s end-of-life care. Yes, that’s very emotionally challenging for most veterinarians. Unfortunately, there’s a higher rate of suicide within veterinary medicine than there are most other professions nowadays. I think that’s because the type of people that want to become veterinarians want to help everybody. They want to be superheroes. Our personalities are such that we’ve been so successful with our education and now we’re in a situation where we’re sometimes helpless.
Q: Because sometimes nothing can be done for the pet. I’ve been in that situation myself.
A:
We’re dealing with a situation where despite our best efforts, we cannot help. It’s a positive and a negative. You have a new puppy examination and all is good — puppy dogs and ice cream — and then the next thing a dog comes in very sick needs to be put down, and the family is devastated. Or you have to give them a terrible diagnosis. And then you’re back to a wellness visit. That emotional roller coaster for a lot of veterinarians can be really difficult for them.