12/05/2024
A message to all of our clients from Dr. Bassett, who will be retiring at the end of the year. Dr. Bassett has embodied compassionate veterinary care and excellence in medicine for so many years, always advocating for what is best for patients. In addition to his incredible talent as a veterinarian, we will miss his smile, laugh and incessant newspaper reading, but we are sure he will still swing by the hospital to say hello fairly often when he's out for his daily bike ride.
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After 42 wonderful years as a veterinarian, employee, owner and employee (again) with Exeter Veterinary Hospital, I am finally moving along to my next stage in life… pickleball, Viking Cruises and riding my bike (still) as a retiree.
At my beginning with Exeter Veterinary Hospital (back in 1982), as an associate of Dr. Alvin Schwartz, I lived in the apartment above the clinic and answered the phone and came to the ringing doorbell after hours and all through the night. For many years there was no emergency hospital in the area. A typical late-night call was treating dogs who were hit by cars (thankfully a rarity now), pulling out porcupine quills or doing surgery on a gastric torsion (bloat). During these late-night treatments, owners would frequently assist with anesthesia and surgery, and I spent many nights sleeping on the floor of the hospital next to a postoperative patient. Today, I am very appreciative of the three local emergency clinics that we have in our area.
After 10 years, I became the owner of the hospital and then things got really hard. Thank God Dr. Lauren Hill was by my side right from the get-go and over the years the hospital has had a remarkable crew of skilled and capable veterinary technicians, without whose help none of our care would be possible.
Over my career I have seen the technology of diagnostics and treatments advance at a spectacular rate, enabling us to do so much more for our patients. Thanks to the availability of new diagnostic machines, we no longer send all bloodwork off-site and tanks full of x-ray processing chemicals are long gone, replaced with computer imaging.
Fortunately for everyone, when I began to think about retiring, Dr. Julie MacClinchy was there. She had been working at Exeter Veterinary Hospital on a part-time basis in addition to her work at the emergency clinic in Portsmouth. I quickly realized Dr. MacClinchy was the perfect fit to be the hospitals’ next proprietor and she became the new owner in 2016. Together with Dr. Hill, the hospital is in great hands moving into the future.
Mine has been a rewarding career of taking care of your beloved pets. There are a lot of memories and stories to tell. I am honored to have met so many wonderful members of our community over my years of service as a veterinarian.
In the years to come, when you’re out in your car, please remember to give any old guy you see on a bike a wide berth. Because it just could be me…
- Dr. Bassett
Dr. Stephen Bassett
Exeter Veterinary Hospital
1982-2024
