HEAL Veterinary Hospital

While I am sure the vets at HEAL have the best of intentions, the reality is the office is too disorganized and overworked to offer acceptable care. We were patients for almost 3 years, and the care has gotten markedly worse. The result was HEAL completely missing our dog's thyroid tumor. The insufficient care really became clear as our one senior dog started to need more diligent care. We have never had a doctor be on time to an appointment--have even been asked to wait up to 45 minutes for a regularly scheduled appointment. The doctors are slow to call with critical test results. If you miss a call, there is no guarantee when or if they will call back. If you call them to ask for the test results, they wave you off. But most egregiously, when you do manage to connect with a vet, our experience was that the vet had failed to review the test results before calling so they are trying to interpret in real time. We have since switched to another vet and are so relieved that our senior dog is finally getting sufficient care. Our new vet has taken the time to do a comprehensive review of our dog's records and has been consultative about treatment care options. Upon consultation, we have realized that many of the treatments and tests done at HEAL were overly aggressive and carried risks that weren't explained to us. We can't help but feel that HEAL was suggesting courses designed to drive up the cost of care, ignoring what our pet actually needed. Worse still, while HEAL was aggressively treating one "issue" they completely missed the more pressing concern--a thyroid tumor indicated by high calcium levels. Especially if you have a dog that requires more care, I encourage you to get a second opinion.

posted: 09/01/2023

Dr. Atkinson is amazing! I have been bringing my dog Athena to her for over 6 years. I live in Staten Island and when she moved her practice to Brooklyn, I happily followed. I would not trust the care of my dog to anyone but Dr. Atkinson. She is caring, compassionate, and always recommends the best options for your dog. She genuinely cares about the well-being of your animal and her bedside manner cannot be matched. I would highly recommend bringing your pet to HEAL Dumbo.

posted: 01/13/2023

The vet basically called my cat a psycho, when in fact on the day of the visit the doctor’s dogs (who were just there for reasons unrelated to their health conditions) were barking for the entire time right next door, which made my cat extremely anxious. They also discreetly charged me for nail clipping when they said it’d be free. They asked me to drop off the fecal sample the following Monday, and when I ubered there on Monday, the office was closed without any notice. Finally, guess what, they charged me for the test while claiming the sample had never been received. Very disorganized staff and disappointing experience to say the very least.

posted: 09/07/2023

We love the HEAL team, and we have been through a lot with them over the past few years. Dr Atkinson, Dr Dumas, and their staff are rockstars. A few years ago when our dog Charlie had a blockage (a full pair of box briefs!), as a new client Dr A put in extra hours to preform surgery right away, saving him from further complications. Later when he very suddenly declined from lymphoma, Dr D and Dr A literally coached us through his care at an emergency vet, explaining what was being told to us and what our options might be at that point. Ultimately Charlie was very sick, and Dr A helped us through at home end of life care. I will be forever grateful how we were treated during one of the most difficult decisions we had to make. Now we have a rescue pup named Vega with high anxiety and skin issues and HEAL has been SO encouraging through our complicated journey with her. When she tore her ACL this summer HEAL diagnosed her and helped us through the process of a major surgery and made sure we found an amazing orthopedic surgeon. Thank you to the HEAL team for always being there for us and our fur babies!

posted: 08/14/2023

My poor pet had to be put down two days ago after finding out the severity of his health condition through ANOTHER veterinarian at another location in Queens. The only way I found out my poor pets’ condition was when I asked for his medical records. Not once was I explained the exact conditions my pet was in & how much he was suffering day by day but sure enough it was written in their notes. Never again! I’ll be sure to not bring my other living pet back here either. What kept becoming an issue every other month & having to return & spend hundreds of dollars, another vet office was able to cure my pets issue & hasn’t been sick since then thankfully.

posted: 04/08/2023