Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Zander Frost, Chronicle Staff Writer
Husband and wife veterinarians Nicholas and Jill Outterson own the clinic. (He is the Outterson quoted in this article.)
Targeted completion date is “next fall/winter,” he said. “I would ideally like to be in before Thanksgiving, but it really depends.”
At a 2022 Moreau Planning Board meeting, some neighbors grilled Dr. Outterson, objecting to details like shrubbery size and possible traffic jams.
The project later won approval.
“Most of the town, if they have a pet, they’re coming here. So everybody’s super excited about it,” Dr. Outterson said.
Currently, “the number of exam rooms we have here is limited,” he said. “We’re basically doubling in size, and doubling our parking space ability. It should be exciting to grow as the community grows.”
“We would like to get more wellness visits in with more doctors,” he said. “We’re trying to do a little urgent care stuff.”
He compared their plan to human medicine at places like Ortho New York, offering both scheduled appointments and walk-in urgent care. “We’re hoping to do a little bit of that — provided we can get the appropriate veterinarians, appropriate health staff,” Dr. Otterson said.
He said they’ll still likely run “Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.”
“Everybody here is very family oriented. The majority of our employees have kids. So I’m not really going get into the weekend hours,” he explained.
The Outtersons said they purchased the clinic in 2018. He is from Buffalo, she is from San Diego. They have lived in the “Albany Capital District region” since 2013. “I was working at Upstate Veterinary Specialties as an emergency overnight doctor,” Dr. Outterson said. “And Jill was doing part-time general practice stuff at some hospitals down in Albany.”
“We’ve always wanted to buy a place,” he said. “I have family in Pittsburgh and I had family out here. And we were basically looking for a hospital for sale anywhere within like four or five hours of my family.”
“We just happen to stumble on this hospital being for sale in 2018,” he said. “But we looked at hospitals from Buffalo to Portland, Maine.”
“We were living in East Greenbush at the time…we wouldn’t even have to move. So we jumped on it.”
“We didn’t know the community would be this great,” he said. “They’re really some of the best clients we’ve ever had.”
“It was a little rough at first when the old doctor just kind of up and left, but everybody’s been great,” he added.
Dr. Outterson noted, “During COVID we had all the older doctors that were going to retire within five years, they ended up retiring right away.”
Dr. Outterson said Dr. Gordon Elmers in Fort Edward “closed his doors and basically told everybody to call…He basically sent everybody here. So we kind of got overloaded and overwhelmed with the COVID stuff.”
“I still think there’s a huge need for more veterinary services around here,” Dr. Outterson said. “I mean, when you’re still turning people away…We’re already kind of overloaded….
“At the same time, I think growth is good, but it has to be kind of calculated…It needs to be growth that’s beneficial for everybody in the community.”
Is it difficult to recruit veterinarians? “We’re super thorough, we believe a lot in preventative medicine, we do a lot of diagnostics,” Dr. Outterson said. “So finding just anybody is probably not the route we’re going to go.”
“We’re really looking for people that practice medicine the way that we do, that care enough to do the follow up, the phone calls, the recheck appointments.”
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