Yes, Hockey... your last statement is really accurate.

2 yrs ago our cat Oreo had a rare cancer ...and I discovered two things. Either the Vets I went to (4 in all) were ready to hit us with thousands of dollars of treatments (it was over $1000 for just the ultrasound and biopsy), or like the 4th one I desperately went to after the diagnosis but before the $5000 surgery... He was fantastic. Very compassionate, available for telephone questions ( I had twice)...and he kept Oreo in a remission with prednisolone for a year and in that time she enjoyed going outside and doing her usual cat routines -- his prognosis was only 2 months and she surprised both of us. In the end she did have to be put to sleep but he did that very gently too. (I asked him the big question that first appointment-- "would YOU do this surgery if it were your cat?" and he told me "no".)
So we decided to use his clinic from then on and it has just been fantastic.

I have found myself thinking as you do Hockey, that I wish more human doctors could be like he is!