Without going into all the boring details I heard from someone with a dog possibly needing surgery at a ridiculous cost. I suggested they contact the A&M vet school small animal clinic. Is this a thing? I assume they need cases to train students.

Somebody will have a better answer about the small vet clinic. I have taken a horse or two to the large animal clinic, so I would think they would have a small animal one.

They do have a small animal clinic. Taking a pet there will not be a cost savings option.

Certainly not much different pricing than regular vets from the major metroplex areas, but great doctors and care teams.

Students do get a small discount.

My lab I had in grad school needed abdominal surgery, turned out to be a case of needing to remove part of the small intestine. Aside from costing me 2K+ all was great.

We have taken two horses to the LAC and two German Shepherds to the small animal. They were all cases that our local vets made the call and got us in. They were all special cases and required detailed diagnostics and treatments.
The cost for the horses was somewhat less than the Equine clinics around us.
The cost for the dogs was considerably less than what the vets would have charged us. But that was many years back….maybe things have changed…

I took my dog there one weekend and we put her down. (was not their fault, just her time). It will not be cheaper.

When my daughter was a student at A&M in 2021, her puppy needed an PDA ligation. She received a discount for the cost of the surgery from the A&M Vet School Small Animal Clinic and her dog received excellent care.

You've got stars so you can PM me with specifics or additional questions. I'm an orthopedic surgeon at the vet school. We take referrals from general practice DVMs and other specialists from around the state, region, and country. I saw a client that flew down from NY to see us a few weeks ago. But we rely on local and regional referrals for our primary caseload.

Yes, we train DVM students in the clinical presentation, workup, peri-op and post-op management of orthopedic disorders. However, we are a specialty hospital providing leading edge care, so the students are not doing the surgeries or procedures we perform. They scrub in and assist with portions of the surgery but there is a specialist, surgical resident, and often an intern scrubbed in as well. The DVM students in the teaching hospital (4th years) play a key role in patient care (and we would not be here without them) but our purpose on the specialty services is not to turn general DVMs into specialists after 2 weeks on a rotation. That's just not realistic.

And to be clear, I'll never change my position on this - being a good to excellent general practice veterinarian is the hardest job in the veterinary field, bar none.

EMY92 said:

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They do have a small animal clinic. Taking a pet there will not be a cost savings option.

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It is for people that want to save their cat from cancer and have an open check book.

What is interesting is that TAMU builds the fancy buildings, TAMU pays the professors (vets), and it is still more expensive. They are designed to be higher than the local vets because being cheaper would run the locals out of business.

They are a specialty hospital.

Don't take your small animal there for annual shots/checkups or routine matters.

While many vets could preform the surgery my lab had, removing a 3 foot long section of small intestine is a serious surgery - the post-op being REALLY important. He received EXCELLENT care and ya, it was expensive - it was going to be expensive at any clinic, and personally I think success rate would have been significantly less.

But that's a personal decision on if you want to spend it on your animal - I don't fault people either way for making those hard choices. Working for a vet through high school and into college as a tech helped me see that while people love their pets, sometimes the money just isn't there to have a 2-4K surgery.

My oldest son is an MD and I once said you guys aren't even real doctors because your patient can tell you what's going on.

EMY92 said:

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They do have a small animal clinic. Taking a pet there will not be a cost savings option.

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I can confirm this as I had a yellow lab go through there 12 years ago, but ended up dying anyway. However, no better care and docs can be found anywhere.

I only have experience with the large animal side. As a teaching school, you can expect them to do a lot of testing and such that your regular vet might not do or think necessary. That testing can get expensive.