A few years back, I wrote a column here on the subject of artificial intelligence (AI) and the many ways it has changed how we practice. Most of it, though, was to do with the many AI-reliant gadgets and services newly available to advance your diagnostic game. Reading radiographs, counting and categorizing cells, querying databases, and analyzing texts—that was the kind of thing we were really excited about.
Back then, the concept of a “virtual vet assistant” was not widely considered an AI-related service. Quite the opposite, in fact. For most veterinarians, this was a semi-reviled service provided by an online veterinarian or veterinary technician. Such providers offered template-powered answers to questions posed by pet owners who had been lured by clickbait ads to blow $20 on a “virtual veterinary consultation.”
That was then. As of last November, “virtual vet assistant” has come to mean something vastly different to those of us using an online tool called ChatGPT. At the risk of sounding like a tech-evangelist host on a YouTube channel, this online AI program has changed everything, and it is available right now—for free, no less.
How it works
Think of ChatGPT as a supremely efficient internet reader capable of summarizing, analyzing, and hypothesizing in an exceptionally methodical and surprisingly articulate style. It efficiently scrapes the web of all available information pertaining to your topic and offers a summary of its findings in whatever style you ask it to adopt.
Want to write a SOAP based on your hastily entered, hacked-together notes? ChatGPT will do it. If you record a client conversation and enter an automatic speech recognition (ASR)-generated transcript of the audio file, ChatGPT will even bullet point the salient issues and format these as a SOAP or a client letter. Ask it to adopt a conversational tone and generate the letter at a 10th grade reading level and voilá, it’s done. Need a paper summarized? Cut and paste it into the text box, ask ChatGPT to summarize it in under 500 words, and there you will have it—in seconds. Its speed will astound you. In fact, it always takes longer to pose your prompt than to generate a response.
Enter your new virtual vet assistant
I have been using the AI chatbot for all kinds of things related to veterinary medicine (and plenty of non-vet things, too). Here’s what it can do:
- Professional info and education. An AI chatbot offers immediate access to any veterinary knowledge or information readily accessible online. Pose questions about specific conditions, dosing, treatments, diagnostics or procedures and it will scrape all that info off the web and serve it up on a platter. This is way faster and infinitely more flexible
than Google!
Example: Don’t have time to read a marathon VIN rounds on IMHA? Cut and paste the whole thing into ChatGPT and ask it to “provide a bullet-point summary in less than 600 words.” Working on your stack of JAVMAs? Cut and paste any relevant papers into the program and ask it to summarize however you would like. Don’t have time to watch a video about a specific procedure? Enter the video’s URL and ask for a summary under 500 words. Looking for really specific info within a text? Cut, paste, ask.
- Decision support. Having trouble with a wcase and don’t have a colleague available to help you talk it out? Using ChatGPT as a smart colleague helps you make more informed decisions on your diagnostic process and treatment plans by offering different perspectives, alternative approaches, and even a list of potential complications. The chatbot is especially useful for preliminary triage situations so I do not miss something really obvious when generating an initial estimate.
Example: “I’m a veterinarian. My patient is a five-year-old female spayed boxer weighing 50 lbs. She had a splenectomy last year after a splenic torsion event, and now has a palpable cranial abdominal mass and petechia visible on her gums and ventral abdominal skin. She’s also had a solitary, high grade 2 cutaneous mast cell tumor excised two years ago. Make a list of differentials and devise a detailed diagnostic plan.” When you get an answer, you can chat back and forth with the program as you identify additional findings. This is a surprisingly helpful tool for your more convoluted cases and will absolutely save you time (and your colleague’s).
- Client communication. Generate customized educational materials, discharge instructions and templates to help organize your records and make your client education materials more effective.
Example: I have plenty of Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking clients whose lean language skills preclude report cards and discharge instructions in English. I have others who prefer their instructions at a higher level and others wanting them read by the whole family. I can easily enter my SOAP notes and have the AI chatbot generate a summary of the visit in whichever language I need, at whatever level is required. I can even have it formatted as an email, letter, text, etc.
- Practice management. Timesaving, powerfully analytic tools are also at a practice owner or manager’s fingertips with this kind of AI, which is why I have written a separate column over on VPN Plus+ detailing ChatGPT’s utility in vet practice management.
Drawbacks and pitfalls
While the learning curve is almost flat, lots of trial and error is required to get facile with ChatGPT. You will quickly learn how to format your prompts, so you get the answers the way you like them. In general, the more detail you provide, the better your answer will be. This can take more time than you would like (especially if you are a hunt-and-peck kind of keyboard user).
It is also crucial to understand the dangers of getting overly cozy with your answers. Always read them over to be sure you have what you asked for. I mean, you would not want to send a gobbledegook referral letter or include irrelevant info in a template because you omitted a small detail in your prompt. I repeat: Always review the answers and retool your questions accordingly.
Will AI ever replace us?
Thing is, artificial intelligence is not any cleverer than its creators or users—not yet, anyway (though we are hurtling towards that eventuality at an astonishing speed). Sure, AI has already come full circle to become an online “virtual vet assistant” available at no cost to every pet owner, but as with earlier iterations of this online functionality, it is impossible to replace the physical exam findings, diagnostic tools or treatments.
While the mechanics of vet med might well be replaced—eventually—by excellent technicians, they will never surpass the level of creativity required to interpret the nuances inherent to any complex living organism—much less its pathology. So, do not worry! You can employ and enjoy your AI chatbot both guilt- and fear-free… for now, at least.
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IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND |
| Here’s how to start working with a virtual assistant:
Step 1: Go to chat.openAI.com. Step 2: Sign up with your email address. Step 3: Click the link in the email message confirming your signup. Step 4: At the bottom of the page, you will see a text box where you can enter a question (also referred to as a “prompt”). Step 5: Marvel at the detail and coherence of the answer provided. It is really that easy. Every veterinarian could use it to help change how you practice veterinary medicine, from the very first moment you use it to solve diagnostic quandaries, access simple answers quickly, write cogent discharge instructions and referral letters, or brainstorm your cases. It is that powerful, but as with any tool, it is crucial to know how it works so that you can understand its limitations and use it to its fullest potential (without falling prey to the pitfalls of over-reliance inherent to using any kind of assistant). |
Patty Khuly, VMD, MBA, owns a small animal practice in Miami and is available at drpattykhuly.com. Columnists’ opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Veterinary Practice News.