Lots of good reviews of this place are on Google but not much on Yelp. I rarely find time to write…read morereviews but as someone traveling who had a beloved pet fall very ill, I would like to unreservedly recommend Dr. Langston in particular and the clinic in general. If you're dealing with a pet emergency (or the possibility of one) on your trip and aren't sure where to go, go here during business hours - don't procrastinate and wait until the middle of the night, because you could pay 5-10 times more at the closest emergency clinic. Even if it turns out to be nothing, the FORTY DOLLAR (or slightly less, actually) office cost will provide peace of mind.
A fairly long summary of our experience follows so I can illustrate why Dr. Langston has earned such glowing praise. My generally healthy bulldog suddenly manifested bloody diarrhea, and not slightly bloody. "Raspberry jam" is a common way this is described - sorry for the graphic image. It was the middle of the night and we were in Orange Beach. An emergency vet clinic in Pensacola was the closest option so after the first bloody and horrible accident inside the condo, we made the drive.
I don't want to slam the other place too much so I won't name it but after arriving around midnight (again, NOT Magnolia, they weren't open yet) we waited over 2 hours to get a "treatment plan"/proposed bill that had over $1200 of billable items listed. Mostly diagnostic tests, only a couple of treatment items. Although a brief discussion of possibilities occurred, NO explanation of the differential diagnosis was offered. NONE. The vet disappeared and was basically unwilling to discuss anything further.
We opted for a minimalist treatment approach, left and went home to wait it out. We came back after yet another very bloody stool was passed. This time it was about another 90 minutes to get to speak to the vet on duty (that comes to 3 hours of driving and, being charitable, 3 hours of waiting). I am not a vet or doctor but have some insider knowledge of these topics for professional reasons, know a bit about how good docs practice medicine, and felt confident my dog who had no history of liver issues or visible symptoms didn't need a full workup including liver enzymes, or a radiograph scan based on history etc. right off the bat.
The biggest concern was shock so we left him there (we stayed in the parking lot) to receive IV fluids and antibiotics the rest of the night (all 2 hours of it) until he had to be discharged. We called several clinics at 7am and the most responsive was Magnolia.
I had the records faxed over (they contained several inaccuracies, unfortunately), drove over, and sat down with Dr. Langston. She felt the wait and see approach with IV fluids and antibiotics was appropriate and more economical. I'm not just praising her because she agreed with me, however, but because she didn't even try to encourage us to pay for anything that wasn't strictly necessary. In fact my girlfriend wanted a workup on our other dog and Dr. Langston indicated it was probably not even needed.
GOOD vets rely on the presentation of symptoms, medical history, and an assessment of tradeoffs of financial cost to the client versus the possible health cost/risk of neglecting to address each possible issue, in light of the likelihood of that issue at each phase of treatment. They don't use the shotgun approach or quadruple the cost of the first line approach simply to check for issues that are fairly unlikely to begin with.
EXCELLENT vets can do all this while giving the patient a clear idea of what's going on, plus a timeline and and the rundown of each possible scenario and the respective approach that would be used, its costs and tradeoffs, etc. That's what we got over at Magnolia.
I kind of hate to slam another clinic but this comparison is provided as an illustration of how much difference it can make having a great vet whose primary concern is practicing medicine in a way that benefits the patient even if it doesn't benefit their revenue as dramatically. If I didn't have a little bit of background knowledge I'd be out of a lot more money because I care greatly about my dog and emergencies require tough, fast decisions.
That's why I recommend going with this excellent provider even if you aren't entirely sure it's needed, just to avoid getting stuck with inferior options after business hours. If I had brought him by Magnolia during daytime hours I also wouldn't have stayed up all night and been given the runaround.
I should also add the interior is sleek and contemporary, staff is genuinely warm and professional, and the office visit and procedure costs are much lower than most clinics.
