By David Ortiz
Contributing Writer
DR. JANE LINDEN, owner of Providence River Animal Hospital, examines a patient.A woman was driving from Connecticut to Providence last Friday afternoon to pick up her daughter at the Rhode Island School of Design, when the ride was interrupted by a howl from the family's Bouvier Des Flandres, whose foot was gushing blood onto the back seat.
Not long ago, such a canine medical emergency on Providence's East Side meant a rushed trip to an animal hospital elsewhere. But today the Providence River Animal Hospital exists in the nearby Jewelry District, and that is where the bleeding Bouvier and its concerned owner headed. Jane Linden, the veterinarian who owns the business, sprang to action when they arrived moments later. Shaving the dog's injured leg to get a better view of the wound, Dr. Linden determined that the foot was not lacerated; the dog had caught a toenail on something inside the car and ripped the nail right out from its base.
Dr. Linden disinfected the wound and packed the area with a clotting agent that resembled Styrofoam. She completed the procedure with a bandage and an antibiotic, and both dog and owner went happily on their way.
"We just had a huge blood bath in here," Dr. Linden said in a breezy tone immediately afterward. "There was blood everywhere."
Which is all part of a routine workday for Dr. Linden. Since opening her animal hospital last June at 131 Point St., Dr. Linden and the two certified veterinary technicians she employs keep a busy schedule of appointments, punctuated by the occasional medical emergency.
Dr. Linden, who earned her veterinarian degree at Tufts Veterinary School, is an East Side resident who has lived in Providence for 20 years, having stayed put after getting her undergraduate degree at Brown University.
She opened Providence River Animal Hospital after leaving a shared practice with four other veterinarians in Norton, Mass. Dr. Linden said she had been looking for the right opportunity to open her own practice for several years before pouncing in 2003, when the family that owned and operated the Aramis jewelry business put its factory building on the market.
The location, two doors up from Olga's Cup and Saucer, a popular café in the heart of the Jewelry District, put Providence River Animal Hospital in the middle of a new community taking root in the defunct industrial quarter.
Dr. Linden said she sees her animal hospital as another link in the creation of a new, fully integrated urban neighborhood.
The renovation, which took a year and cost an estimated $300,000, completely transformed a space where once jewelry was cast into an inviting doctor's office cast in warm earth tones. Framed black-and-white photographs of Dr. Linden's dogs and cats adorn the wall.
Behind the waiting room is a state-of-the-art veterinary facility, equipped with a lead-lined X-ray room, a laboratory that can process blood work in 15 minutes, and rooms that house offices, kennels, a kitchen and a special bathroom equipped with a doggie bathtub.
But the nerve center in the facility is an examining room dominated by a long stainless steel table, onto which Dr. Linden lifted Ananda, an 8-month-old Golden Doodle who had been suffering with a painful limp.
"What a good girl. You're a good girl," Dr. Linden cooed into Ananda's ear as she examined a tender leg. "She had fluid on the joint that we had to tap."
While Dr. Linden is clearly comfortable providing medical care for animals, conceiving of and operating her own business has required her to learn a whole new set of skills, she said. Before starting the business, she enlisted help from the Rhode Island Center for Women & Enterprise, where mentors guided Dr. Linden through the process of drafting a business plan and securing capital.
"I'm a veterinarian, I'm not a businessperson," Dr. Linden said. "But the business side of things has been fun."
Eleven months after Providence River Animal Hospital opened its doors without a single client, the business now has approximately 500 clients, Dr. Linden said. People bring their pets in from as far away as Attleboro, Barrington and Wickford, but most live on Providence's East Side, where a thick population of pets was largely without local medical care, she said.
In what she described as "heavily targeted marketing," Dr. Linden has run a series of print advertisements in East Side Monthly and Providence Monthly. But most of the stream of new clients who arrive on a weekly basis were referred by other satisfied customers, Dr. Linden said.
"They really feel how much we care about their animals," Dr. Linden said.
Published 06/04/2005
Issue 20-08