Northstar VETS Founder And New Jersey Native Talks About His Practice
Daniel Stobie, DVM, MS, DACVS is the founder, chief of staff, and a doctor in the Surgery service at NorthStar VETS. In this article, he talks about why he built NorthStar VETS, how the team is advancing veterinary medicine, and the kind of case that makes it all worthwhile for him.
Northstar VETS Conception
“When I decided to open the practice, I envisioned a place where we could do everything under one roof and not have to send the cases away to other hospitals for different specialties and pets could get everything taken care of in one place.” Dr. Stobie leads a team of more than 40 doctors who work in more than a dozen different specialties. “All the surgeons here do all types of surgery from soft-tissue surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, to emergency and trauma surgery. The things that I have special interest in are orthopedics and joint-replacement surgery. I’m the one surgeon here in the practice who does those procedures.”
Why Northstar VETS Enjoy Their Work
With a hospital in Robbinsville and in Maple Shade, Dr. Stobie is often tied up in the management and business side of NorthStar VETS, but he still enjoys the chance to work personally with clients and their pets. “We get to do what we love every day, interacting with people and pets. Probably the most rewarding thing is seeing an animal that is really connected to their person and their person is connected to them. When they’re really sick maybe with a not-so-good prognosis for a good outcome, and then we take that animal, fix them, get them well, we love to see them be healthy again and the joy on the person’s face when they’re reunited with their pet. That is the most rewarding thing about this job.
Northstar VETS Case History
There’s one case from a couple years ago. It was a little dog that came in with this swelling in his inguinal area (his groin). It turned out he had an incarcerated hernia. The dog was very sick, the intestine was being strangled, so we had to do an emergency surgery. We went in and removed that damaged part of the intestine and then hooked everything back up. What I didn’t know at the time was that the woman who took care of this dog was wheelchair-bound. This dog was her constant companion and she was lost without him. Getting this dog well and returning him to her was important. He would ride around with her in the wheelchair and get things for her like a service dog. Those are the types of things that are very rewarding and make every day, even the hard days, worthwhile.”
How Northstar VETS Provide World-Class Care
NorthStar VETS is always developing new and improved techniques to better treat their patients. “We’re always trying to develop new procedures, new techniques and do clinical trials. These give us new and innovative technologies and techniques in medicine to help the animals and when we put those into place and when they actually work, that is really rewarding.” Dr. Stobie and the team at NorthStar VETS will continue to provide world-class care to their patients. “We have a great team here and I wouldn’t be able to do it without all the people who work here. All of us working together has created something that I think is really special.”