KeynotePurina Institute Global Summit · posted Oct 2025
The Impact of AI on Veterinary Diagnostics and Consulting
With Eli Cohen · panel discussion
AI Education & Veterinary AI Literacy
Developing evidence-informed curricula that prepare veterinary students and professionals to understand, evaluate, and responsibly use artificial intelligence in clinical practice, research, and education. The framework below is published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.
Educational Need
- Artificial intelligence has already entered veterinary diagnostics and clinical workflows, often before practitioners have been taught how to appraise it.
- Veterinary students report strong interest in AI but limited knowledge and low confidence in evaluating AI-supported findings.
- Veterinarians remain professionally accountable for decisions informed by AI, which makes critical appraisal a clinical competency rather than an optional extra.
- AI literacy therefore belongs in the DVM curriculum, taught alongside diagnostics rather than bolted on as a technology elective.
Five-Module Curriculum Framework
Adapted from Huang and Chu, 2026, Frontiers in Veterinary Science, under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
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01
Fundamentals of AI
What artificial intelligence is and is not: core terminology, the difference between rule-based systems, machine learning and generative models, and where each realistically fits in veterinary practice.
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02
Machine Learning
How models are trained, validated and tested; what training data quality does to performance; and how to read a reported accuracy figure critically — including annotation, class imbalance and overfitting.
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03
Large Language Models and Prompt Engineering
How language models generate text, why they produce confident errors, and practical prompting strategies for literature search, drafting and structured data extraction.
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04
Ethical and Legal Considerations
Professional accountability for AI-supported decisions, client consent and communication, patient data privacy, intellectual property, and institutional AI policy.
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05
AI in Veterinary Scientific Research
Applying AI across the research workflow — literature review, data handling, image analysis, and scientific writing — with explicit norms for disclosure and reproducibility.
VTPB 948 — Course Implementation
A graduate and professional elective at Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, first offered in Spring 2026. The course delivers the five-module framework through hands-on work: students annotate cytology images, train a detection model, build an AI chatbot, evaluate commercial veterinary AI tools, and present a final project.
Spring 2026LLMComputer VisionAI Literacy
The full 15-week schedule is published as Table 1 of Huang and Chu, 2026.
Open Educational Resources
Free AI tutor
VetClinPathGPT — veterinary clinical pathology AI tutor
More than 5,000 conversations with students, interns and residents. Read how to use it.
Free database
What's Your Diagnosis (WYD) Database
A searchable index of every WYD article published in Veterinary Clinical Pathology since 2008.
Teaching pages
Vet Clin Path Resident — cytology teaching on social media
Case-based cytology teaching for students and practitioners since 2018.
Videos & Podcasts
TutorialACVP exam preparation · May 2025
Essential Math and Plots for the ACVP Phase II Clinical Pathology Exam
TalkTexas A&M University · Apr 2025
Essential AI and Digital Tools for Graduate Student and Veterinary Researcher
PodcastThe A.C.V.P. Podcast · Dec 2024
A Conversation with Dr. Candice Chu
Season 2, Episode 13 · recorded at the ACVP/ASVCP Annual Meeting
TalkResearch Conversation Series · Nov 2024
How a Texas A&M Professor Streamlines Academic Writing with AI and Digital Tools
PodcastDr. Aleks Digital Pathology & AI · Oct 2024
How to Teach AI to Healthcare Professionals
Podcast conversation on teaching AI to healthcare professionals
PodcastDigital Pathology Place · Oct 2024
Can AI Improve Veterinary Diagnostics and Academic Efficiency?
Interview on AI in veterinary diagnostics and academic workflows
TalkCenter for Teaching Excellence, Texas A&M · Oct 2024
AI Teaching Assistant: Build Your Own ChatGPT
Tutorial3 Minute Veterinary Cytology · Apr 2021
How to Take Cytology Pictures Using Your Smartphone
Teaching demo for veterinary interns and students
TutorialVeterinary Cytology · 2021
Approach to Cytology
TutorialGrad School 101 · 2020
Keys to Successful Scientific Presentations
TutorialGrad School 101 · 2020
Design a Great Slide Presentation
Educational Evidence
I really liked how she organized the material and helped us focus on the big picture concepts. I also like how she taught the material in the way she goes through cases. This really helped me understand and have a way to go through the lab data consistently every time.
VTPB 927 Clinical Pathology · Fall 2025
I personally loved how Dr. Chu walked us through each step AND (most impactfully) intentionally drew the connection of what we learned to how it was applied. This really stood out to me because I feel a lot of professors jump pretty quickly to application without walking us through how that connection was made.
VTPB 927 Clinical Pathology · Fall 2025
She was very straight to the point of what we need to learn from her material and taught it well. She was a really great instructor.
VTPB 927 Clinical Pathology · Fall 2025
The course was very well organized and I had a clear understanding of what was required and when.
VTPB 948 Artificial Intelligence and Digital Tools · Spring 2026
She often prompted us to try new tools and alter the way we interacted with them to see how it altered the response.
VTPB 948 Artificial Intelligence and Digital Tools · Spring 2026