Our Story

How It All Began

In the spring of 2014, Dr. Sarah Chen signed a lease on a modest 1,200-square-foot space on Clayton Avenue in St. Louis. The paint was fresh, the equipment was secondhand, and the waiting room had exactly four chairs. What it lacked in polish, it made up for in purpose: build a veterinary practice that treats every pet the way she'd want her own animals treated — with patience, honesty, and the best medicine available.

The idea for Clix Family Hospitals wasn't born from a business plan. It was born from frustration. After years working in emergency veterinary medicine, Dr. Chen saw the same pattern again and again: pets arriving in crisis because warning signs had been missed at routine visits. Appointments that lasted eight minutes. Pet parents who felt rushed, confused, or talked down to. She knew there had to be a better way — a practice where preventive care was the foundation, where every appointment had enough time built in for real conversation, and where the technology matched the talent in the room.

The first year was anything but glamorous. Dr. Chen was the sole veterinarian, sharing the space with one veterinary technician and a part-time receptionist who also happened to be her college roommate. They saw twelve patients in their first week. Word spread slowly — through neighborhood Facebook groups, through the dog park on Skinker Boulevard, through the kind of quiet referrals that happen when someone finally finds a vet they trust. By the end of 2014, they were seeing over a hundred patients a month.

Growth came not because of marketing, but because of philosophy. From day one, Clix Family Hospitals operated on a set of principles that still guide every decision we make: explain everything in plain English, never recommend a procedure you wouldn't do on your own pet, invest in the best diagnostic equipment you can find, and never, ever rush an appointment. That philosophy attracted not just pet parents, but veterinary professionals who were tired of the assembly-line model. When Dr. Marcus Williams joined in 2019 — bringing surgical expertise and a calm, confident energy that puts even the most anxious pets at ease — the team found its stride.

The name "Clix" started as an inside joke. In the early days of clicker training for anxious patients, the staff would joke that "it all comes down to the click" — the precise moment of positive reinforcement when a scared dog realizes the exam room isn't something to fear. The name stuck because it captured something real about our approach: small, intentional moments of connection that build trust over time.

Today, Clix Family Hospitals occupies a modern, 6,000-square-foot facility with four veterinarians, eight veterinary technicians, and six support staff. We've treated over 15,000 pets. We earned AAHA accreditation — a distinction held by fewer than 15% of veterinary practices in North America — in 2016 and became Fear Free certified in 2018. In 2024, we launched AI-powered tools including an online symptom checker and smart booking system, not to replace the human touch, but to make sure pet parents get faster answers and our team can focus on what they do best: caring for animals.

But the numbers only tell part of the story. What makes this place different is harder to measure. It's the way our techs remember every patient's name. It's the homemade treat jar in the lobby that gets refilled twice a week. It's the follow-up call you get the day after surgery — not from a receptionist reading a script, but from the vet who performed the procedure, checking in because they genuinely want to know how your pet is doing.

We're not the biggest practice in St. Louis. We're not trying to be. We're trying to be the one you trust — the one where your pet walks in happy and your questions always get answered. That's what we set out to build in 2014, and it's what we show up to protect every single day.