ST. GEORGE — As the city of St. George continues to expand south, many new businesses are springing up in the area, including the Red Hills Animal Hospital.
After being in business for more than 20 years, Red Hills has now outgrown its location at 658 S. 1100 East.
Without sufficient exam rooms to accommodate five doctors, the partners decided it was time to open a new veterinarian’s office in Desert Hills. The sister hospital, located at 922 E. Brigham Road, will serve residents and their pets in the Desert Hills, Little Valley, Bloomington and Sun River areas.
The Desert Hills Animal Hospital, which opened last week, offers a wide variety of services including abdominal ultrasounds, dental x-rays and cleaning, vaccines, routine blood work, physical exams and more, Dr. Kade Farnsworth told St. George News.
“We really needed to expand,” he said. “A lot of our clients had to wait several days and up to a week to see one of the doctors, so the new office gives us more opportunity to provide more exam rooms and to get our clients in a lot faster.”
The wait time has dropped dramatically, Farnsworth said, and is now down to 20-30 minutes.
It was a natural extension to follow the southern expansion, he added.
“There is not a lot of veterinarians out here,” Farnsworth said. “We also wanted to be far enough away from our other clinic so that we were not on top of each other.”
Along with the physical growth for Red Hills, there has been an expansion in personnel as well. The vet’s office has brought on both Dr. Caleb Gwilliams and Dr. Mark Robison in the last month.
Robinson graduated from Washington State University in 2016 before starting his veterinarian career in Washington D.C. But coming to St. George is a bit of a homecoming, he said.
“This is my home, I grew up here,” Robinson said. “My wife is what took me to northern Virginia. We were out there for more than two years and we really loved it, but I’ve always bugged her about returning to St. George. It’s hard to get this city out of your blood.”
As Robinson didn’t care much for being a student, he never thought becoming a veterinarian would be a path he would follow.
After receiving a degree in property and facility management and working for Marriott International, Robinson had a seachange in belief saying that not liking school was a poor excuse for not following a dream, so he went back to school.
“I didn’t want to have any regrets,” he said. “I just kept going and going. I guess I was a better student than I gave myself credit for.”
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