{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/veterinarians/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Veterinarians", "soc_code": "29-1131", "category": "Healthcare", "us_employment": 83900, "median_annual_wage": 130100 }, "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 87, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 15, "embodiment": 19, "liability_shield": 18, "trust_premium": 17, "judgment_accountability": 18 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Palpating an abdomen on a fractious cat, spaying, extracting a carnassial tooth, calving a dystocia at 2am, and drawing blood from a moving dog are the day's actual billable units, and the parts AI genuinely takes — SOAP notes, differential lists, initial radiograph flags — are minutes off a case, not the case itself, which is why this sits at 15 rather than 18.", "embodiment": "Nearly every diagnostic input comes from your hands and eyes on a live animal in a room, a chute, or a muddy paddock — auscultation, temperature, ultrasound probe placement, restraint judgment — and large-animal ambulatory work happens in barns and pastures with no controlled conditions, which is the top of the band short of a 20 reserved for jobs with no screen component at all.", "liability_shield": "State practice acts limit veterinary medicine, surgery, and prescribing to a licensed DVM, and your DEA registration, rabies vaccination certificates, USDA health certificates, and extra-label drug decisions under AMDUCA all carry your signature and your license number, so the malpractice and board complaint land on you personally rather than the clinic.", "trust_premium": "Clients bring the same dog back to you for a decade and let you make the euthanasia call because they trust your read on quality of life, and in food animal and equine practice the herd contract follows the individual vet — that continuity is why 17, with the deduction reflecting emergency and shelter work where the animal arrives to whoever is on shift.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide whether to open an abdomen on a bloated GDV at midnight, whether a $400 budget goes to radiographs or to a treatment trial, when to stop treating, and whether a downed cow's meat is safe for the food supply — irreversible calls made on incomplete history from a patient who cannot speak, with no protocol that resolves them." }, "rationale": "Veterinary work is hands-on: physical exams on animals that cannot describe symptoms and do not cooperate, surgery, dentals, radiograph positioning, euthanasia, and herd or field calls. AI already drafts records, reads some radiographs and cytology, and triages symptom lists, which compresses documentation and diagnostic-support time — but a licensed DVM must sign prescriptions, health certificates, and rabies documentation and carries the malpractice liability. The euthanasia conversation and the cost-of-care decision with a distraught owner are the part clients pay a human for.", "outlook": "Demand stays strong and AI mostly eats paperwork and first-pass image reads, freeing vet time for procedures and client conversations rather than replacing the role.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State veterinary practice acts explicitly banning telehealth-only or AI-only diagnosis without a prior in-person VCPR (Veterinarian-Client-Patient Relationship) — currently contested state by state, with California AB 1399 loosening it and several states holding a physical-exam requirement. If more boards codify a hands-on VCPR before any prescription, and USDA APHIS keeps requiring an accredited DVM's signature on interstate/export health certificates and rabies certificates, the mandatory-signature perimeter widens.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Corporate consolidation (Mars/VCA, JAB) driving fee-per-visit standardization has produced visible client backlash toward independent and house-call practices; if 'you see the same named DVM every visit' becomes a marketed and price-supported differentiator, and AAHA-style accreditation ties to named-clinician continuity, the human premium hardens around end-of-life and chronic-care relationships.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: AI absorbs record drafting, radiograph and cytology screening, and phone triage, leaving the shift dominated by sedation decisions, exploratory surgery, financially constrained treatment planning, and euthanasia counseling. This is a genuine two-tier job and the residual tier is the harder one.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If state boards or malpractice carriers (AVMA PLIT) formalize that the DVM remains sole responsible party for AI diagnostic-support outputs — an explicit 'no delegation of clinical judgment to software' rule in board guidance — the ambiguity calls stay named to a person.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 1 } ], "ceiling_note": "Already at 87; embodiment 19 and liability 18 are near ceiling, so realistic total movement is a few points at most. The real risk is not score decline but headcount: AI-assisted techs and mid-level practitioner proposals (Colorado Prop 129's veterinary professional associate) could hold the score while shrinking the number of DVM slots." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 69370, "wage": 90420 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 71060, "wage": 93830 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 74540, "wage": 95460 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 73710, "wage": 99250 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 77260, "wage": 100370 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 78810, "wage": 103260 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 78220, "wage": 119100 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 80630, "wage": 125510 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 83900, "wage": 130100 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 20.9, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }