Now Hiring — Friends VSE Opening Fall/Winter 2026 in Newtown, PA · Join our Team!
Now Hiring — Friends VSE Opening Fall/Winter 2026 in Newtown, PA · Join our Team!
A board-certified emergency and critical care clinician with regional leadership experience and a focus on collaborative care for the whole patient.
Emergency & critical care
Chief of ECC and medical director
Mentorship and collaborative care
Board-certified in veterinary emergency and critical care.
Dr. Suzanne Dempsey Kulessa attended Vanderbilt University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Economics in 2000. After veterinary school at the University of Georgia, she completed a rotating internship and residency in emergency and critical care at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston, MA, in 2010. She achieved diplomate status later that year.
Immediately after her time in Boston, Dr. Dempsey worked at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital in Tinton Falls and Hillsborough, NJ, before moving to Pennsylvania. From 2012 to 2023, she served as Chief of Emergency and Critical Care and then as Medical Director at the Center for Animal Referral and Emergency Services, now BluePearl Langhorne.
Over the past three years, Dr. Dempsey has supported specialty and emergency hospitals throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania and Central New Jersey. As a respected, approachable clinician and leader in the region, her professional interests include optimizing collaborative care focused on the whole patient, ultrasound in the emergency setting, and mentoring and teaching support staff and the next generation of veterinarians.
Dr. Dempsey lives in Bucks County with her husband, two children, dog Gigi, and her daughter’s bearded dragon, Mango. She enjoys playing tennis, gardening, paddle boarding, and entertaining friends and family.
Friends VSE is bringing together people who understand both excellent medicine and the teams that make it possible.
