HYDE PARK — After nearly 40 years as Hyde Park’s veterinarian, Thomas Wake has sold his practice.
Wake on Wednesday said he and his partner, Marcia Hutchings, have sold the Hyde Park Animal Clinic at 1363 E. 53rd St. and the associated hospital at 6937 S. Stony Island Ave., which they've run for 38 years.
“What you do is you come into a place knowing really great people have built it up to where it is and your job is to build it up with your own talent and resources,” Wake said. “I really wanted to get people who would keep adding to it.”
Wake will continue to work at the clinic half-time, but he’s handed over the ownership to a partnership of vets led by Jeremy Williams, the current medical director, and Joe Whalen, who was previously at Lepar Animal Hospital in Evergreen Park for 20 years.
Wake said the new owners will continue his focus on service and plan to form new partnerships with animal surgeons and other specialists to build up the clinic, which expanded in 2011 to include the hospital in South Shore.
He said repeatedly how grateful he is to have found Hyde Park and the people and the animals who live here.
“I was one of those people who wandered around,” Wake said.
Before becoming a vet, Wake dabbled in medicine before finding his true calling when he found a cow in the road.
Wake said when he was 21, he was teaching in a small farm town while taking a break from pursuing the medical license his poor parents wanted him to get. He said he was leaving dinner at a student’s house when he discovered a herd of cows blocking the road.
While helping wrangle the cows back into the pasture, he said he realized his discomfort wasn’t with medicine, but the idea of practicing on people.
“I didn’t know what I would do if a patient died,” Wake said. “But if the dog dies, I’d go to lunch — that was the lie I told myself that day. As soon as I started, I realized you feel just as bad about the dog.”
Wake is spending more time with his dog now and has time to reflect on how much more people bond with their pets now compared to when he started.
“Animals have become much more a member of the family,” Wake said.
He said people now treat pets more like children, and with that, expect care like they would give to a child.
“They want to invest in a lot more sophisticated care than when I first came out,” Wake said. “They’ve taken on a different place in people’s lives.”
Wake said he’s going to stay in Hyde Park for at least another year helping people with their cats and dogs on Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays at the clinic.
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