From vet school to AI founder, Jason Szumski tracks a bigger shift

Jason Szumski’s rise from recent veterinary graduate to AI founder reflects a broader shift in veterinary medicine: clinicians closest to the profession’s daily friction points are increasingly building the tools meant to solve them. In a Vet Life Reimagined episode highlighted from WVC, Szumski was framed as a veterinarian only a few years out of school who had already moved into startup building, underscoring how quickly AI has become part of the profession’s workforce and practice-management conversation. That arc matches outside reporting on his role as co-founder of VetSOAP, an AI platform aimed at veterinary documentation and clinical support. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

The background matters here. Veterinary teams have spent years contending with staffing shortages, rising caseloads, documentation overload, and burnout concerns. In University of Illinois coverage published April 4, 2024, Szumski said the jump from seeing one or two cases a day in school to 12 to 14 in practice made traditional note-writing unsustainable, and he described confidence as the biggest gap for many new graduates. That helps explain why AI tools are gaining traction not only as efficiency products, but as scaffolding for early-career clinicians who may not have ready access to mentorship in every setting. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

VetSOAP’s pitch, based on that university profile, is straightforward: use AI to summarize pet-parent conversations into patient notes, save time, and maintain documentation quality. The founders also said the platform could surface diagnostic ideas from a curated dataset, which they positioned as a confidence booster rather than a replacement for clinical judgment. The same profile said the app was in beta in 2024 and was being priced to be accessible to practicing veterinarians. Szumski’s background also reinforces the “builder” narrative: Illinois described him as deeply involved in student leadership before graduation, and a LinkedIn post later showed he had passed NAVLE and joined Golf Rose Animal Hospital in Schaumburg, Illinois, within Mission Veterinary Partners. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

That story lands in a veterinary market already primed for AI scribing, but also increasingly focused on what kind of care model technology should support. In Vet Life Reimagined’s AI-focused conversation with Dr. Mike Mossop, host Megan Sprinkle pointed back to a 2026 trends discussion that framed AI as a likely “co-pilot” for veterinary medicine — essentially a high-functioning digital assistant. Mossop, now chief veterinary officer of CoVet after work in emergency, general practice, and mobile care, described a vision for technology that strengthens patient care, client experience, and professional wellbeing without displacing the relationship-centered core of practice. That framing is useful context for products like VetSOAP: the appeal is not just speed, but whether AI can make veterinary work more human by reducing friction around it.

A parallel Vet Life Reimagined episode with Dr. Christie Long broadens that same point beyond AI alone. Sprinkle introduced Long as a second-career veterinarian who came into the profession from software and business, bringing a systems and innovation mindset after an unconventional path that included global travel, reflection, and a major career pivot. Long has since worked clinically, helped pioneer veterinary telehealth, and moved into leadership at Modern Animal, where she is focused on designing sustainable, high-quality care for both clients and veterinary teams. Her episode centered on identity shifts, experimentation, listening, and building together — themes that reinforce why veterinarian-led innovation is getting more attention now. The profession’s future is not being shaped only by vendors from outside healthcare, but by people inside vet med who are trying to redesign workflows and care models around sustainability.

AAHA has told pet parents that AI scribing can improve record completeness, efficiency, and communication, provided veterinarians review and approve the notes and are transparent about consent and data handling. In parallel, Andy Roark’s January 2026 podcast discussion with Aaron Massecar focused on what human medical literature suggests about AI scribes, including potential reductions in administrative burden and possible benefits for burnout prevention. Roark has also published separate commentary arguing that enthusiasm for AI has to be matched with governance, because the data captured by these systems could be used in ways that help teams, or in ways that feel intrusive and counterproductive. (aaha.org)

Industry reaction has followed a similar line: optimistic, but cautious. AAHA’s guidance for implementation says practices should think through security, secondary data use, and clinician review, while a separate AAHA piece on wellbeing said AI tools for scribing and radiology create an opportunity to improve patient outcomes, client communication, and practice culture. Roark’s commentary goes a step further by warning that the real issue may not be note generation itself, but what happens when practices or vendors start mining exam-room data for training, performance monitoring, or other secondary purposes. That concern is especially relevant as more veterinary-specific AI vendors enter the market and compete on features beyond transcription. (aaha.org)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, Szumski’s story is useful because it connects two major trends that are often covered separately: workforce development and AI adoption. New graduates need speed, confidence, and support. Practices need better documentation without adding more administrative drag. AI founders who are still close to clinical reality may be better positioned to design for those needs than generic health-tech companies are. The broader Vet Life Reimagined conversations with Mossop and Long add another layer: the profession is also debating what innovation is for. In that framing, the goal is not automation for its own sake, but tools and systems that preserve listening, strengthen relationships, and make care more sustainable for the people delivering it. But that advantage only holds if products are accurate, transparent, and deployed with clear guardrails. In practical terms, clinics evaluating these tools should look beyond time savings and ask harder questions about consent, data storage, note review, clinical liability, and whether the product supports veterinarians’ judgment rather than subtly replacing it. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

There’s also a professional identity angle. Szumski’s example suggests younger veterinarians may increasingly see entrepreneurship, workflow design, and AI literacy as part of a veterinary career, not a detour from it. Long’s nontraditional path from software and business into veterinary leadership points in a similar direction, suggesting the profession may place growing value on systems thinking and cross-disciplinary experience. That could reshape how veterinary medicine thinks about leadership pipelines, mentorship, and even education, especially if schools and employers begin treating technology fluency as a core workforce skill rather than an optional extra. This is an inference based on the growing visibility of veterinarian-built AI tools and conference programming centered on veterinary AI futures. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

What to watch: The next phase will be less about whether AI scribes can save time, and more about whether veterinary medicine can set durable norms around validation, privacy, data governance, and appropriate clinical use as startups like VetSOAP try to scale from founder story to everyday workflow. Just as important will be whether the profession keeps steering these tools toward a “co-pilot” role that supports more human, relationship-centered, and sustainable care. (drandyroark.com)