From vet school to AI founder, a new vet career path takes shape

Version 2 — Full analysis

Jason Szumski, DVM, is part of a small but growing group of veterinarians who are moving quickly from clinical training into product building, and his story says a lot about where veterinary medicine may be headed next. In a recent Vet Life Reimagined episode, hosted by Megan Sprinkle, DVM, Szumski described a path from vet school into AI entrepreneurship, centered on solving everyday practice problems rather than leaving medicine behind. That framing matches how his alma mater, the University of Illinois, has described VetSOAP: a veterinarian-founded tool that uses AI to generate patient records from audio recordings. (vetlifereimagined.com)

The background here is important. Veterinary medicine has spent years dealing with staffing strain, documentation burden, and burnout, creating fertile ground for tools that promise administrative relief. By May 2024, AAHA was already spotlighting VetSOAP among veterinary software innovators, describing its pitch as automated SOAP-note generation designed to save clinicians time and improve workflow. Industry coverage since then has suggested that if 2024 was the year AI entered mainstream veterinary conversation, 2025 and 2026 are shaping up as the years practices test which tools are actually usable in exam rooms. That broader conversation has also been shaped by Vet Life Reimagined interviews with leaders like Christie Long, DVM, and Mike Mossop, DVM, who have framed innovation less as tech for tech’s sake and more as an effort to build safer, more sustainable systems for teams, clients, and patients. In Mossop’s discussion with Sprinkle, AI was described as a likely “co-pilot” for the profession — a digital assistant meant to enhance care and relationships, not replace them. (aaha.org)

Szumski’s own backstory helps explain why that message resonates. The University of Illinois said he served in multiple leadership roles during veterinary school, including as class representative and VBMA chapter president, before graduating in 2023. The same profile said his early experiences as a new veterinarian informed product features, including the ability to search a curated dataset for relevant articles. In other words, the company’s pitch is not simply transcription. It is workflow support built by someone close enough to early-career practice to understand where friction shows up first. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

That said, the larger veterinary conversation around AI has become more sober. In a recent discussion on Dr. Andy Roark’s platform, Roark said he has been impressed by AI scribes as a way to reduce administrative burden, while also emphasizing that everything still needs to be checked. In the same conversation, veterinarian Petra Harms, DVM, founder of VetMaite, pushed for stronger AI governance, quality control, and privacy protections. Her broader published commentary argues that responsible adoption depends on understanding risk, trustworthiness, and the different ways harm can show up across users and settings. (drandyroark.com)

That caution lines up with the more values-based innovation message coming from other veterinary leaders featured in the same media ecosystem. Long’s Vet Life Reimagined episode emphasized that her second-career path — from software and business into clinical practice, telehealth, and leadership at Modern Animal — gave her a systems mindset and a focus on listening, experimentation, and sustainability. Mossop similarly argued that technology should strengthen the veterinary client relationship and professional wellbeing, not erode what makes the work human. Together, those conversations help place Szumski’s startup story in a wider shift: more veterinarians are entering innovation work with explicit interest in redesigning care delivery, not just selling software. (vetlifereimagined.com)

Regulators are moving in that direction too. In its March 2025 white paper, the American Association of Veterinary State Boards said veterinarians should never assume AI output is accurate and remain solely responsible for finalizing the medical record. The document also flagged medical recordkeeping, confidentiality, and informed consent as core regulatory issues. It specifically said informed consent should be obtained when AI assists in writing or summarizing medical records, and that if AI is used to transcribe an exam, the client should be notified and allowed to opt out. (aavsb.org)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this story captures a broader workforce shift. The profession is starting to reward more than clinical competence alone. New graduates who can identify workflow problems, assess software claims, communicate across technical and clinical teams, and understand privacy and compliance issues may have an outsized role in shaping practice operations. It also suggests that nontraditional backgrounds — in business, software, systems design, or entrepreneurship — may increasingly be seen as assets inside veterinary medicine rather than detours from it. At the same time, clinics evaluating AI scribes or decision-support tools need to remember that the labor savings pitch does not remove professional accountability. The veterinarian still owns the record, the judgment, and the client relationship. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

There is also a culture signal here. Szumski’s rise suggests younger veterinarians may increasingly see innovation, startup work, and clinical practice as overlapping lanes rather than separate careers. Long’s and Mossop’s interviews point in a similar direction: veterinary medicine may be opening more space for career pivots, experimentation, and leadership paths built around systems thinking as much as direct patient care. That could expand career pathways in an industry that has long struggled to retain talent by offering limited definitions of success. If that trend continues, veterinary education may face growing pressure to teach business, informatics, and AI literacy alongside medicine. This is an inference based on the direction of current coverage and commentary, but it fits the pattern emerging across veterinary media and conference discussions. (vetlifereimagined.com)

What to watch: The next phase will be less about whether AI can draft notes and more about whether veterinary organizations, boards, and practices can agree on standards for consent, privacy, validation, and human oversight as these tools become routine — and whether the tools that last are the ones that genuinely support relationship-centered, sustainable care. (aavsb.org)