Jason Szumski’s path reflects vet med’s growing AI workforce shift

A Vet Life Reimagined episode featuring Jason Szumski, DVM, puts a spotlight on a fast-emerging reality in veterinary medicine: some of the profession’s newest graduates aren’t just entering clinics, they’re building the tools clinics may rely on next. Szumski, a 2023 University of Illinois graduate, is part of that shift as co-founder of VetSOAP, an AI documentation platform designed to generate veterinary notes from audio recordings. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

That makes the episode more than a career profile. It lands at a moment when veterinary medicine is actively searching for ways to expand capacity, reduce administrative drag, and make the work more sustainable. IDEXX said in its 2023 productivity study that practices could uncover as many as 2,000 hours annually through better workflow, technology, and culture, the equivalent of adding one full-time veterinarian in some settings. The same study found widespread hiring difficulty and poor software integration, two pain points that help explain why AI-enabled documentation has become such a visible area of experimentation. (idexx.com)

Szumski’s background helps explain why his story resonates in the education-workforce category. The University of Illinois said he served as class representative throughout veterinary school, led the school’s VBMA chapter, and helped create recruitment videos before moving into small-animal practice. Illinois also reported that his experiences as a new veterinarian shaped VetSOAP’s design, including its use of a curated dataset to surface relevant guidance alongside documentation support. That framing positions him not simply as a founder chasing a trend, but as a recent graduate trying to solve problems he encountered almost immediately in practice. (vetmed.illinois.edu)

There’s also evidence that Szumski’s profile is expanding within organized veterinary medicine and conference education. The Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association recognized him in 2025 with a young veterinarian award, citing both his clinical work and his efforts to streamline hospital operations and support recent graduates entering the profession. Conference materials and company pages also show him speaking on AI in veterinary medicine while continuing to build VetSOAP with co-founder Aaron Smiley, DVM. (morningagclips.com)

Industry reaction to AI scribes has been cautiously constructive rather than uniformly celebratory. AAHA’s guidance for pet parents says veterinarians should disclose use of AI scribing, ask for consent, and be prepared to answer questions about storage, access, and whether clinicians review the final note themselves. In a dvm360 interview, Kathleen Allison-Black, DVM, described AI scribes as a way to streamline documentation and reduce after-hours charting, while still emphasizing privacy, liability, and clinician oversight. That matches the broader tone across the profession: interest is real, but so is concern about how these tools are implemented. (aaha.org)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the significance of this story is twofold. First, it highlights a changing career map for new graduates. Entrepreneurship, software, workflow design, and AI literacy are becoming more visible parts of veterinary career development, not side conversations. Second, it underscores that AI adoption in practice is now a workforce issue as much as a technology issue. If documentation tools can safely reduce charting burden, improve record completeness, and give clinicians more face time with pet parents, they may help practices protect retention and capacity. But regulators are signaling limits: a recent AAVSB white paper says veterinarians should understand training data, limitations, and evaluation methods before incorporating AI into practice, and warns that performance data for veterinary AI tools often isn’t readily reported. (aavsb.org)

That means the real test for founders like Szumski won’t be whether AI gets attention at conferences. It’ll be whether veterinary-specific tools can prove they’re accurate, secure, workflow-friendly, and transparent enough for everyday clinical use. It also raises a training question for veterinary schools and employers: are they preparing graduates not only to use AI, but to evaluate it critically, communicate about it clearly with pet parents, and recognize when human judgment must override the software? That’s an inference based on the direction of current guidance and market activity, but it’s where this story appears to be heading. (aavsb.org)

What to watch: Watch for more formal guidance from regulators and professional groups, more conference programming on veterinary AI implementation, and more scrutiny of vendor claims around accuracy, privacy, and integration as adoption moves from experimentation to routine workflow. (aavsb.org)