Progressive Animal Hospital, Somers

Dr. Andrew Frishman has owned and practiced at Progressive Animal Hospital in Somers since 2006 and has a good reason for the name of his facility.

In addition to providing such routine services as blood tests and surgeries, Frishman said he offers “more cutting kind of things in some alternative or holistic medical care.”

Frishman, who resides in Ridgefield, CT, said, “One of the things I’ve prided myself on is I’m always looking for new kinds of technologies and things that are at the forefront of veterinarian medicine.”

One example of alternative care offered at the facility is Frishman’s use of platelet rich plasma which takes a section of an animal’s blood (platelets) and uses it to heal through injections.

“It promotes healing rapidly,” Frishman explained, noting the platelet rich plasma is used to deal with such situations as arthritis, non-healing wounds and traumatic injuries. “What would normally take let’s say two weeks to a month to heal takes five to seven days,” he said, adding the therapy can also be used in humans.

“Unfortunately, it’s not done enough (in humans) because, guess what, it’s not covered by insurance,” he said.

Another treatment that Frishman described as “relatively cutting edge” is autogenous vaccines used for cancer care as an alternative to surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy. “We’re able to take the actual tumor and, for a lack of a better word, they break it down or put it in a blender, to put it in laymen’s terms, and they take the cellular proteins and they make a vaccine out of it,” he said.

The vaccine is injected to prime the immune system so if the tumor regrows in a spot in the body where it was removed or cancer develops elsewhere in the body “your body will attack it naturally,” Frishman said. “We’re definitely the first in New York to use it.”  The treatment is being used more and more in humans, he said.

The cutting-edge technologies utilized at Progressive Animal Hospital are not typically used elsewhere because they are not covered by insurance or doctors are not informed about them because they were only trained in traditional medicine, Frishman maintained.

Frishman said he is proud that Progressive Animal Hospital is “a mom and pop” facility, unlike larger corporate facilities with several doctors.

“Just like any other business in 2017, there are the big box stores,” he said. “I’d like to think there’s more love and there’s more care and there’s more personal (service)” provided by a small business, Frishman said. “That’s the way I’d like to think of us”

Progressive Animal Hospital is located at 149 Route 202 and Lovell Street in Somers. For more information, call 914-248-6220 or visit progressive-vet.com.

Neal Rentz