Am I an AI Idiot?? Are Some Vets Just Lazy? One Linkedin Article In?! Let's Discuss

Linkedin Article with Comments

Dang. I'm only one Linkedin article in and already ruffling some feathers. I know William Tancredi can relate!! 😂

Let's actually figure this out though. Here is my original article for full context, but I'll rehash the important bits below.

I will also respect this person's anonymity with careful screenshot cropping and little black [redacted] boxes like this is some kind of top secret military file (I just binged The Day of The Jackal on Netflix - was good!), but still provide the full conversation because I think it is important context. I will also include where I think I went wrong. OK, let's just jump in:

OK first things first, where do I think I went wrong here? Clearly my first mistake was:

"I did skim your message and will say tho the big different with me is that I have a doctorate in veterinary medicine"

And not just because of my "difference" typo 😅

This person was reaching out, trying to educate me about AI, and I should have just left it at that. I did feel like the:

"Just thought I'd send a message since you were quoting it, which is a classic example of what not to do with it"

line at the end was a little pointed (essentially accusing me of doing something wrong / inappropriate in a public forum where I am presenting myself as a go-to resource on the use of AI in the veterinary community), but still, I should have just walked away.

And to be clear - I am NOT opposed to learning more here! Just the other day Megan Sprinkle, DVM, DACVIM (Nutrition) recommend that I try perplexity.ai instead of ChatGPT for things I would normally Google, and I have been! And can see the pros & cons of each...

But on the other hand, I do have a long history of feeling some type of way about people disrespecting my expertise and the time and energy I put into receiving my DVM. Yes, I know I should "change my perspective" and blah, blah, blah, but I'm sensitive OK?! Maybe some level of a Napoleon complex (I'm 5'4")? I'm also just sick of people disrespecting veterinarians in general.

So I'm honestly not too mad about what I said.

But obviously what REALLY got me going was:

"It aligns with what you think you know from school, which is what it's supposed to do. You should ask your mom how true what you learn in school is verse what is true in practice 😉"

OK, quick little insight into texting with me...

DO. NOT. SEND. ME. A. WINKY. FACE. EMOJI. TO. SIGNIFY. HOW. DUMB. I. AM. AND. HOW. MUCH. SMARTER. YOU. ARE. THAN. ME.

This is not the first person to do this and I'm sure it won't be the last. But unless you REALLY wanna piss me off, do not send me a bunch of winky faces if you're not my wife and trying to be flirtatious... (Greg Bishop how I am doing at trying to make these funny?? lol)

Also...

DO NOT DOWNPLAY MY CLINICAL EXPERIENCE!! AND DEFINITELY DO NOT TELL ME TO GO ASK MY MOM!

Wow. Just wow.

Let me say this. My mom is one of the most brilliant and talented veterinarians I have ever met. I SHOULD and DO seek her expertise on all things from medicine to client communication to business to personal life, etc. etc. etc. She is my best friend and my idol.

But that said, I do NOT need to "ask [my] mom how true what you learn in school is verse what is true in practice".

You know why? BECAUSE I PRACTICED MEDICINE FOR 2 YEARS. And tech'd for a dozen before that. And one of my two years out in practice was my INTERNSHIP that I completed AT THE HEIGHT OF COVID.

Remember that?? COVID? When the demand in veterinary medicine EXPLODED and we had 8-12 hour wait times, or even just turned people away completely? Yep. That was my internship.

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Real quick story here before I move on. As many of you know, a lot of what you do as a rotating intern (after vet school when you are a DOCTOR - I see the word "intern" misused / misunderstood by people outside of our field as well) is work ER. And not unlike many other ER's, my internship had a physical Triage Board. It was a giant whiteboard with black electrical tape partitioning it into sections for "Arrival Time", "Patient", "Presenting For", "Triaged?", and "Dr". You know, kind of like this...

So one day I decided to actually count the rows. It was 17 or 18 lines depending on if you counted that skinny little half-row at the bottom that happens when you make these things by hand.

At some point, a few months into my internship, we were consistently filling the board often enough that the hospital decided to buy and make a SECOND one. 

Yep. Up to 36 cases either waiting to be triaged / picked up or currently being worked up by a doctor at any given time (we of course erased the rows as we either discharged them or admitted them to the hospital - the goal was to CLEAR THE BOARD!). 

I do realize this probably doesn't mean much to anyone who has never worked ER, so let me put it another way. When I started my internship no one waited more than 1-2 hours to be seen. If they did, we were REALLY busy. At the end of my internship we were either telling people the wait time would be 8-12+ hours, or to simply to try going elsewhere.

Often when we talk about internships in veterinary medicine we talk about them being the equivalent of "5 years in general practice in 1 year". This was a common discussion during my 4th year of veterinary school, and was why I ultimately elected to do an internship, even though my end goal was join my family's general practice.

"You're doing an internship when you wanna do GP??? WHY?!?!?!"

Because my parents wanted us (my brother and I) to. They wanted us to get that extra year / crash course in real-life clinical reasoning so we could come back home with a certain level of confidence in our medicine. And they were RIGHT!

But why were my fellow classmates so incredulous at this decision? For anyone unaware, internships are often referred to as "slave labor", or "indentured servitude" as I sometimes joke. And this was ESPECIALLY true during COVID.

It was not uncommon for me to work 17-18 hour days and 100 hour weeks, especially when I was on ER. I definitely took longer to write my records than most (a discussion for another blog post), but still. When I was working a 12-12 on a Saturday we were "supposed" to come off the floor at 11pm to start writing our records. I often didn't leave until 4 or 5pm since I was scrambling all day trying to get all of my cases sorted (who is hospitalized? who is transferring? Are all of my treatment sheets done?) and was just STARTING my records at 12 or 1am. So I would sleep for maybe 5 or 6 hours, wake up, and do it all again on Sunday.

Let alone those weeks on overnights...

(I also made $34k on internship which worked out to about $4/h some weeks... but again, a story for another blog post)

So let's just say that I do NOT need to go ask my mommy what real-life clinical medicine is like. Oh, and then I did come home and practice GP for about a year after my internship.

Anyway, sorry - I have digressed quite a bit. Let's get back to those messages. 

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What's next? Oh...

"The second most common trap is for people who have degrees claiming they know stuff just because they have degrees 😁"

Honestly, this one just speaks for itself. What an asinine thing to say. 

I also already responded to it in the screenshots above, and my responses actually speak to one of the reasons I burnt out and turned into a PIMS guy in the first place.

When someone asked me something like "when should I spay my dog?" I didn't just give the normal boilerplate response. I often did EXTENSIVE research into the topic, like "What is their breed? When does that breed normally first come into heat on average? What research has been published on that breed and their risk of mammary cancer vs. joint health vs. other, etc. etc." 

Sorry I know maybe my use of the term "boilerplate" makes it sound like I'm saying giving a generic answer here is wrong, but it is NOT! Again, doing what I did is arguably worse since it significantly contributed to my burnout (I did this with all the time with all my cases 😕 )

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OK now I want to talk about what I actually did do. And if I did anything wrong. I know in my messages I said:

"Nothing I said [or] did in my post was inappropriate in any way shape or form"

But let's actually analyze that. And this is where I might lean on people like William Tancredi, Dr Adele Williams-Xavier, and Petra Harms who are WAY smarter than me and know WAY more about this than I do. I trust that if I really shit the bed here they would have let me know after my first post, but still, let's talk about it.

What did I actually do?

Let's recap the screenshots of ChatGPT that I included in my original post, which is how I "quoted" it, which "is a classic example of what not to do with it."

First of all, I prefaced all of these screenshots in my post by saying:

"There I am, in the middle of the dog training center, haven't practiced in 4 years, allowed a lot of this info to exit my brain, don't have any of my textbooks or vet school notes handy..."

So I am saying that ChatGPT is NOT my go-to source for information, but rather I was using it out of necessity in the moment.

I also noted that I:

"said what every ridiculous pharmaceutical company commercial (so insane that they are a thing in the US) does... 'Please consult with your doctor [veterinarian]'"

Now let's look at how I was actually using ChatGPT.

Was I quoting it and portraying it as fact in a real-life clinical decision-making moment? Or was I just using it to jog my memory about things I already knew, and trying to help this pet owner understand the different options and pros and cons and timing of each? To better inform them when they went back to their vet for their next puppy visit.

Again, my way smarter veterinary AI expert friends can tell me if I actually did commit some kind of AI mortal sin here, but my gut tells me I did not. 

Especially since the incomparable Dr Adele Williams-Xavier already commented on my original post saying "This is great Mark, enjoyed reading it" and William Tancredi did not yell at me for dragging his name through the mud, but rather was the first person to "like" it.

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OK, last thing. This blog / article is already too long so genuinely THANK YOU if you're still with me. 

So yesterday was Saturday. That means it was Dog Training Day. So I caught up with the original puppy owner that I referenced in my original post. It had been a few weeks.

So I asked:

"Hey! Just curious - did you ever talk to your vet about doing the OFA or PennHip X-rays?"

"I did! She said they don't do those until 6 months though."

"But what about the timing of the JPS surgery?"

"I know. I mentioned that. She said she's never heard of that one, only the one where they break the pelvis."

"And that was it? Did she say she would look into it?"

"Not really. I kind of just left it there."

"OK, no worries. Don't want you to push it. It's probably unlikely that she will develop hip dysplasia anyway. How old is she now though?"

"Now she's 4 months"

"OK hold on one second..."

Ugh.

It would have taken that vet literally 30 seconds to just google this and take her client's concern more seriously.

I do also feel like it was a bit disrespectful to me as a fellow veterinarian to not even take the 30 seconds to look this up.

Oh and...

But maybe I'm wrong here as well. Again, not just giving the boilerplate response is a major reason why I burnt out and had to leave clinical practice in the first place.

But here's another thing I always say:

"I generally try to never say anything negative about another veterinarian. I wasn't there in the exam room and don't know the whole story. But veterinarians are also humans at the end of the day. Just like there are good teachers and bad teachers, good cops and bad cops, vets are the same. No different than any other profession."

SO NOW I TURN IT OVER TO YOU!!

THE 1, MAYBE 2 PEOPLE STILL READING THIS 😂

PLEASE GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS!! 

Whether you agree with me or don't, and want to tell me: 

"Yes, you in fact you are an AI idiot!"

or 

"Boilerplate responses for spay timing and OFA rads is absolutely what we should be doing for these reasons..."

I genuinely want to hear your opinions!!

Obviously this person that messaged me touched a nerve, but I'd like to use it as a learning experience.

AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR ANY AND ALL COMMENTS / ENGAGEMENT!!

I know I'm going to start sounding like a broken record here, but it truly does NOT go unnoticed or unappreciated! 

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Mark Massaro, DVM

"The Digital DVM" (website coming soon...)

1-12-25