AVMA Global Health Summit puts practical innovation in focus
Bottom line
The American Veterinary Medical Association is using its 2026 Global Health Summit to put practical innovation at the center of this year’s convention agenda. The daylong summit is scheduled for July 13, 2026, during AVMA Convention 2026 in Anaheim, California, and will offer up to six hours of in-person CE. According to AVMA and dvm360, sessions will cover AI and telemedicine, sustainability, wildlife disease surveillance, antimicrobial stewardship, One Health communication, paraprofessional care models, and the role of specialists in workforce and policy discussions. Lori Teller, DVM, is set to open the summit, and keynote speaker Mark Penning, BVSc, the retiring Disney executive for animals, science, and environment, will share lessons from animal care and conservation work tied to Disney parks. (dvm360.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the program reflects where pressure points in practice and policy are converging: workforce shortages, antimicrobial resistance, sustainability expectations, public health communication, and growing interest in AI-enabled care delivery. The lineup suggests AVMA is framing innovation less as a technology story alone and more as an operational and professional one, with implications for CE priorities, team design, and how practices talk with pet parents about care in a more complex health environment. (dvm360.com)
What to watch: Watch for whether ideas highlighted at the summit, especially around AI, paraprofessional models, and antimicrobial stewardship, translate into broader AVMA education, policy, or practice-management initiatives after the July 10-14 convention. (dvm360.com)
The AVMA Global Health Summit is returning to the 2026 AVMA Convention with a clear theme: innovation that’s meant to be practical, not abstract. The summit will take place Monday, July 13, 2026, at the Anaheim Convention Center during AVMA Convention 2026, which runs July 10-14, and AVMA says attendees can earn up to six hours of in-person continuing education. dvm360’s conference preview and the AVMA convention schedule show a program built around AI, sustainability, antimicrobial stewardship, One Health communication, paraprofessional care, and the policy role of specialists. (dvm360.com)
That focus fits the summit’s longer trajectory. AVMA’s Global Health Summit has previously centered environmental health, sustainability, and One Health, and the 2026 program appears to extend that framing into newer operational questions, including workforce models and digital tools. In other words, this year’s agenda looks less like a standalone “future of tech” event and more like an attempt to connect global health priorities with everyday veterinary practice decisions. (avma.org)
The details underscore that shift. Lori Teller, DVM, will open the summit with a session on innovation and global challenges in veterinary medicine, with telemedicine, AI, and related technologies explicitly in scope. Other sessions will examine sustainability in animal practice, wildlife conservation and spillover disease surveillance, antimicrobial stewardship across continents, veterinary public health communication, and how paraprofessionals can be integrated into care delivery. A late-afternoon session will also look at how specialists can take a more visible role in advocacy, governance, and workforce discussions. (dvm360.com)
AVMA’s own framing suggests it sees these issues as tightly linked. In comments cited by dvm360 from the AVMA announcement, Shannon Mesenhowski, chair of the AVMA Committee on International Veterinary Affairs, said the theme reflects how quickly many parts of the profession are changing, pointing to global workforce issues, antimicrobial resistance, sustainability, education, AI, and collaborative care models. That matters because it positions innovation as a response to structural stressors, not just a set of optional tools. (dvm360.com)
The convention’s keynote adds another layer. Mark Penning, BVSc, who recently announced his retirement as vice president of animals, science, and environment for Disney Experiences, is slated to headline the broader AVMA Convention program. According to dvm360 and the North Carolina Zoo, Penning is also preparing to become director of the North Carolina Zoo this summer. His keynote is expected to draw on Disney’s animal care operations, including Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Animal Kingdom Lodge, and The Seas with Nemo and Friends at EPCOT, as well as global wildlife conservation work involving species such as sea turtles, lions, and coral. (dvm360.com)
For veterinary professionals, the summit’s significance is in how it bundles several conversations that are often treated separately. Antimicrobial stewardship is a clinical and regulatory issue. Sustainability is increasingly tied to operations, supply chains, and client expectations. AI and telemedicine raise workflow, ethics, and access questions. Paraprofessional models and specialist engagement speak directly to workforce capacity. Taken together, the program signals that AVMA wants innovation to be understood as a practice-level competency, one that affects how teams deliver care, communicate risk, and maintain standards while serving pet parents in a changing environment. That framing is also consistent with AVMA’s broader emphasis on practice support, team development, and One Health education. (dvm360.com)
Industry reaction in the available public material is still mostly anticipatory rather than critical or skeptical. The clearest external signal is dvm360’s decision to spotlight the summit in its conference coverage, emphasizing the breadth of topics and the practical tone of the agenda. No independent expert critiques were readily available in public sources at the time of reporting, so the strongest read is that the event is being positioned as a cross-cutting CE and strategy forum rather than a venue for major policy announcements. That’s an inference based on the agenda and current coverage. (dvm360.com)
Why it matters: For clinicians, managers, educators, and association leaders, the summit could help set the conversation for the second half of 2026. If attendance is strong and the sessions resonate, topics like AI governance, antimicrobial stewardship frameworks, paraprofessional integration, and sustainability may move more quickly from conference programming into hospital protocols, CE offerings, and state or national association discussions. For practices, the practical question won’t be whether change is coming, but which innovations are mature enough to adopt without adding friction for teams or confusion for pet parents. (dvm360.com)
What to watch: The next marker is the convention itself in Anaheim on July 10-14, 2026, especially whether AVMA follows the summit with new educational resources, policy language, or implementation guidance tied to AI, stewardship, workforce models, and One Health communication. (dvm360.com)