About Mermaid Vet Hospital

Mermaid Vet Hospital resulted from a mixture of fate, ambition, and frustration.

Dr. Hagstrom and Dr. Mosites moved to Vero Beach in 2018 as a result of a colleague in Texas recommending a position in the area. While spending the day exploring the Treasure Coast, they came to Vero Beach and couldn’t resist the charm of the area, making plans to move and take different positions here instead.

While Dr. Hagstrom was nurturing the desire to strike out on her own as a practice owner; it was important to her to build a life in the area, prior to building a business. She took a position with a nearby corporate practice, while Dr. Mosites began a locum business, helping owners near and abroad to maintain and care for their patients while they were away. Both doctors learned a great deal, both positive and negative, about the ways a practice could operate from these experiences and felt they could make an impact as owners themselves. As a result of growing frustration with corporate “red tape”, they decided to take the leap and open their own clinic. They just needed a location.

The property needed to open presented itself in a similarly serendipitous manner. While shopping local real estate for a building that could potentially be converted into a veterinary clinic, it was brought to their attention that the former owner of a longstanding local practice would be vacating the building that had housed it for the past 30 years. Dr. Mosites had already worked there as part of his locum service and knew it would suit their needs and, with some changes, become the nautically themed practice they had envisioned in January 2020.