Bark City brings emergency pet care to Park City, cutting out 6-8 hour ER wait times

Bark City Veterinary Specialists opens an ER clinic from Friday-Monday to help local pet owners avoid potential 6-8 hour SLC wait times. Photo: TownLift // Meredith Kluever.

PARK CITY, Utah — Most people would do anything for their pets. In the past, if an emergency happened, owners would have to take their animals down to a Salt Lake City emergency clinic and wait for hours. Bark City Veterinary Specialists have changed that for pet-owning Parkites by creating a local ER open Friday through Monday from 8 a.m.-8 p.m.

“People are starting to come from Salt Lake City because they don’t want to wait eight hours for a doctor when they can just drive 20-30 minutes up the hill and see somebody,” said Dr. Stephen Jones, Board Certified Veterinary Surgeon with Bark City.

Around 18 months ago, Dr. Brian Beale, owner of Bark City and long-time veterinary surgeon, purchased the building previously owned by Bill White to create a non-corporate specialty veterinary center. According to its website, “Dr. Beale improved the Tibial Plateau Leveling Osteotomy (TPLO) procedure by pioneering the Arthroscopic TPLO.” In layman’s terms, the TPLO is the surgery most Park City dogs are familiar with— knee surgery. Dr. Jones estimates he’s done between 1,500 and 2,000 TPLOs in his career.

“[Dr. Beale] is very passionate about doing the right thing, even if it costs him more money,” said Jones. “For example, the MRI…he knows that’s the best, so that’s what he’ll get. He’s learned you get out what you put in if you use the best equipment and do things the best way, you get better outcomes.”

Bark City was running tests on its state-of-the-art 3 Tesla MRI machine, which is fully functional and available for clinical patients. In addition to one of the world’s most powerful MRIs, the specialists have a 64-splice CT machine, a C-Arm machine (which allows intra-operative radiographic imaging), x-ray stations, and two state-of-the-art operating rooms (OR’s) at their command.

“We’re kind of spoiled; we have the best of the best.” The OR’s are even positive pressure rooms, meaning air can leave the room without coming back, filtering out potentially harmful particles and keeping patients safe.

Bark City Veterinary Specialists plans to expand operations to include more treatment rooms, an ICU, and an emergency specialist called a criticalist. Currently, the team includes Dr. Stephen Jones, a board-certified surgeon specializing in
small animal orthopedics, neurosurgeon and neurologist Dr. Ashley Hechler, Dr. Lisa Anderson, board-certified veterinary surgeon, surgical intern Dr. Mitch Sadowitz, and Dr. Lisa Pasquarellero and Dr.Allie McPhee, who head up the Emergency Service,

Bark City Veterinary Specialists is known for specialty care like surgeries and advanced care; patients are often referred to Bark City by general practice veterinarians to help create a treatment plan. When surgery is the best care route, Bark City’s surgeons put minimally invasive treatments above all others.

“We all are very passionate about doing things minimally invasively, trying to limit pain, and improving functional outcomes,” Jones said. “Human medicine is always about 10-15 years ahead of veterinary medicine, but human medicine usually trends in the right direction and we want to emulate that in our patients. When it comes to fracture repair for example, we’re trying to do it the same way as if you broke your leg, how you’d be repaired.”

After teaching at The Ohio State University for seven years, Dr. Jones and his wife, Dr. Hechler, and their Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Patrick, moved to Park City to be a part of Bark City’s trailblazing team. As a specialty-focused establishment, Bark City offers continued education for those looking for hands-on orthopedic experience and lectures.

“We do a lot of continuing education here,” said Jones. That’s another thing we’re all passionate about. We teach veterinarians because they want to learn these procedures, but they don’t have specialty training like we do… I think as an institution, people are starting to recognize, I think, at least that we’re offering something just a little bit higher level.”