b'ARTICLEAI IN VETERINARY MEDICINE:from an input such as a conversation For an giving time back to theInternational Womens Day, andtranscript, a clinical history, or a problemInternational the conversations it prompts aboutlist. In day-to-day small animal practice, career longevity, feels particularlyequine work, and referral settings, it is theWomens Day profession relevant to veterinary medicine.generative tools that currently have theedition with a focus The work is demanding, emotionallymost direct impact on workload, becauseon inspiration and loaded, and increasinglythey target the administrative layer that fragmented by administration.expands around every patient. sustainability, that By Dr Adele Williams-Xavier BVSc MRCVS DipECEIM PhD Clinical notes must be accurateGenerative AI is best understood asis a meaningful and defensible. Referral lettersa powerful drafting and summarisingpromise: not need detail. Owners expect clearengine. It does not think like a clinician, discharge instructions and timelyfuturistic hype, but a follow-up. None of that is optional,and it should not be treated as an authority. Its value is that it can takerealistic opportunity but it often spills into lunch breaksinformation that already exists and turn itto protect time.and evenings, turning finishinginto usable documentation, quickly. That notes into a routine rather than ancould mean a structured consult note exception. drafted from the conversation, a referral letter drafted from the assessment and plan, or a client-friendly summary This matters because time pressurethat translates clinical language into does not land evenly across a workforce.clear next steps. Used responsibly, it Veterinary medicine is a female-majorityreduces the constant switching between profession, and women are also morelistening, typing, and thinking, which is a likely to work part-time across manyhidden driver of fatigue in a busy clinic.sectors, often while carrying a greaterCurrent applications of AI inshare of caring responsibilities. Whenveterinary practiceunpaid after-hours admin becomesThe most useful way to understand normalised, the result is not justAI in vet med is to follow the patient inconvenience. It reduces recovery time,journey, from first contact to follow-increases cognitive fatigue, and pushesup. AI is already being used, or has talented clinicians towards roles that feelnear-term potential to be used, across more sustainable. If the profession wantsfront-of-house processes, in-consult retention, wellbeing, and high-qualitytools, clinical support, diagnostics, back-care, it needs to take documentationoffice operations, and even at-home burden seriously and treat it as a systemsmonitoring.problem, not a personal failing. Front-of-house and client interactionArtificial intelligence, when usedBefore a patient has even arrived, well, offers a practical way to reducepractice teams are already dealing some of that burden. It will not solvewith a volume of messages that did not staffing gaps, unrealistic demand, orexist in the same way a decade ago: the emotional complexity of clinicalappointment requests across multiple practice. It can, however, removechannels, queries about vomiting at avoidable friction, particularly around2am, medication questions, insurance documentation and communication.paperwork, and pre-op instructions. For an International Womens DayAI-enabled tools can support this front edition with a focus on inspiration anddoor of the practice by helping manage sustainability, that is a meaningfulbooking workflows, responding to promise: not futuristic hype, but a realisticroutine questions, and collecting pre-visit opportunity to protect time. information in a structured way. That From buzzword to toolset might look like a guided history form AI is often talked about as if it werethat adapts to the owners answers, or one thing, but in practice it is a set ofa messaging assistant that helps route tools that do different jobs. Some AI isrequests to the right team member.predictive, meaning it uses patterns inTriage is a particularly tempting area, data to estimate likelihoods. Other AIbecause it appears to promise efficiency, is generative, meaning it can draft textbut it needs careful framing. www.inspiredvet.co.uk33'