Carter Veterinary Medical Center first opened its doors on January 7th, 1991. We began our facility buildout in September of 1990. We started on a shoestring budget with no clients, no money, drowning in major debt, all while welcoming the brand new addition of our fourth child to our family. Needless to say, we had our hands full! Carter Veterinary Medical Center was bred from Dr. David Carter's passion for educating the public about pet care. Dr. Carter changed the original name from Carter Pet Hospital to Carter Veterinary Medical Center in 2001 as he had a vision of morphing his veterinary hospital from simply an animal clinic to a full-service veterinary medical center, emphasizing the importance of not only meeting his patients' medical needs, but the pet owners' needs as well.

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In addition to changing the practice's name in 2001, through an extensive expansion of the original practice we doubled our square footage and increased our services to include advanced in-house computerized laboratory equipment, as well as the utilization of a state-of-the-art surgical laser. When we first started incorporating our surgical laser into our practice, there was less than 5% of veterinarians nationwide that utilized this far superior research-based surgical tool, putting us quite literally at the forefront of modern veterinary technology. Dr. Carter was very excited to begin offering the surgical laser to his clients as opposed to the traditional use of scalpels because of its superior surgical accuracy, as well as its dramatic reduction of post-operative complications. To this day, surgical lasers remain at the forefront of not only modern veterinary medicine, but human medicine as well. In fact, surgical lasers are overwhelmingly underutilized in human medicine.

 

As our practice grew after our expansion, Dr. Carter really enjoyed the hands-on comprehensive care of each individual patient. His passion was to evolve not only his knowledge, but also his skills, as veterinary medicine evolved into the 21st century. Our x-ray equipment went from an analog x-ray machine that required hand-dipping each individual film in a designated "black room" to an automated x-ray developer machine that took the images and processed them within minutes without the need of physical development. At the time, this was state-of-the-art. Now, our x-ray equipment has evolved into computerized radiography, with the newest, cutting-edge technology of digital radiography.

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The development of our laboratory started with no in-house laboratory equipment, with the exception of a single microscope. All blood chemistries and CBC's had to be performed using an off-site local human clinical laboratory. From a simple microscope to hands-on in-house basic laboratory testing to hands-off laboratory blood, urine, and stool testing, to then computerized laboratory testing, and now to completely digitalized laboratory testing and special assays, our in-house laboratory has seen some extensive changes and advancements throughout the years. This expansion and developments have enabled us to go from laboratory testing results within days to complete blood and urine results within 30 minutes, with the upmost accuracy. Dr. Carter has personally experienced this entire evolution of veterinary clinical laboratory medicine. Not only can we perform all of the testing within our own hospital in 30-45 minutes, but he also has access to board-certified veterinary specialists via telemedicine for immediate expert lab results review and consultation for every case.