A note for anyone who wants to know what’s getting discussed in the back rooms of the veterinary industry
Every year, I go to the big medical conferences in January and February to try to figure out what’s going to happen in veterinary medicine. This insight is not presented from any stage or published in any program. It’s not on display in the expo hall or sent out in an email.
No, as best I can tell, if you want to know what’s going to happen in vet med, you have to talk directly to the people who are most likely making it happen. Those people tend to be at these conferences, and sometimes I can get them to visit with me. From these conversations, I try my best to piece together where the profession I love is heading.
This year, I got to talk to a stable of fascinating people, and they mostly wanted to talk about three unknowns. They didn’t tell me what the future would be, but they did convince me these three questions are going to be paradigm shifting. Here they are:
- What Happens Beyond AI Scribes?
For people in the know, there isn’t a question of whether AI scribes are going to be used in the vast majority of practices in the coming years. There’s only the question of “which one?”
There are a boatload of AI scribes out there right now, and only a few are going to make it long term. One of the big discussions that’s happening behind the scenes in veterinary medicine is around the supplemental features that AI scribes might bring to bear to differentiate themselves from the pack.
Think about it. AI scribes are in the exam rooms, listening to every conversation that’s happening. They have the potential to recognize signs of burnout in veterinarians and staff members, identify who is making effective dental recommendations, and understand what exam room behaviors are most successful in getting patients care. They can suggest diagnostics that clinicians haven’t considered, offer continuing education related to the most common cases being seen, and provide lists of differential diagnoses to streamline and improve diagnostic workups.
What will veterinarians want behind-the-scenes in their AI scribes? What will the corporations who employ them want? Who will build it first? The take-home message here is that the AI scribe is not the end of the path. It’s a vehicle to do a lot of new things. But what will those things be?
- What Will Mid-Level Practitioners (MLPs) Actually Do?
Online, people fight about whether or not mid-level practitioners are “a good idea.” Behind the scenes, that question is moot. They exist in Colorado and all expectations are that other states will be following suit. “Good or bad” is a much less useful question than “what will actually be?”
Right now, the powers of the midlevel practitioner are inside a black box. Once deployed, will this job be closer to our current licensed technician role or will it be closer to the general practice veterinarian role?
I asked one expert what he thought the job would entail and he said “look at everything a GP veterinarian does. Now justify why each thing couldn’t be done by an MLP.” If that’s the approach that is ultimately taken, what will it mean for your standard veterinary practice?
- How Will Distributed Education Actually Work?
This one sounds a bit academic, but bear with me. The distributed model of education is the approach where a veterinary school coordinates the education of its students in veterinary practices instead of hosting it inside a designated teaching hospital. It’s also called workplace based or community based education.
Basically, a veterinary student does course work at the institution and then goes to different vet clinics to learn some or all of the hands-on part of their training. Lots of schools do some of this – encouraging their students to do externships at private hospitals, and some have gone all in using this model exclusively.
Right now, we’ve got about 5 vet schools that do not have a teaching hospital and send their students out into the world to get their hands-on training. By almost all accounts, the system works. The students are getting a functional education this way, and the veterinarians graduating are as competent as those coming through schools with teaching hospitals.
Here’s what’s interesting about all of this. There’s a pile of new veterinary schools in the developmental pipeline right now, and the vast majority (about 10 by my count) are planning to use this model to educate their students.
Let’s do some math. Let’s say there are 10 new schools that have 100 students per class, and each one of these students is going to need to do 10 rotations at private practices to graduate (I’m just guessing at this rotation number). Well, that means that private veterinary practices are going to need to provide 10,000 rotations for veterinary students to take in addition to the rotations they are already providing for the schools that are already using this model.
How is that going to work? How much education can you shift onto veterinarians who are not educators and who are incentivized to actually see cases? Listen, teaching students is wonderful but it’s a lot of work, and this stream of students is not intended to be temporary.
Is it possible that a system that seems to work well for 5 veterinary schools is simply not going to work for 15? What role will corporate practice groups play in providing this education, and what will that mean for all the clinics that aren’t involved?
So, those are the three big topics that I heard the most about earlier this year. I don’t have a lot of answers, but I continue to meditate on these issues, and I thought there might be others out in the world who would at least find the questions interesting.
I suspect you’ll see me writing more about these issues as the year goes on, and I will probably be talking about them on the Cone of Shame Podcast as well.
My friends, regardless of what happens, I am confident that we will adapt and evolve to serve our patients.
Best always,
Andy
