From Data to Wisdom: A veterinarian’s guide to smarter decisions (#391)

Modern tools and timeless judgment shape better patient care.

In veterinary medicine, clinical decision-making is rarely about a single lab result or exam finding. Instead, it’s a progression from raw facts to sound, compassionate action.

One useful way to think about this is the DIKW model:

Data → Information → Knowledge → Wisdom

Data: Raw facts without context

• A 4-year-old Dachshund is presented with sudden onset of wobbliness in the pelvic limbs

• The dog is able to walk, but gait is unsteady

• Excellent pain perception is present in both pelvic limbs

• Normal thoracic limb function

  
  

• Owner reports the dog yelped while jumping off the couch yesterday

  
  

Information: Data with context

• You note that ambulatory paraparesis with normal thoracic limbs localizes the lesion to caudal to T3 spinal cord segment.

• The breed is predisposed to thoracolumbar intervertebral disc extrusion, especially Hansen Type I.

• Excellent pain perception suggests the spinal cord injury is mild to moderate, not severe.

  
  

Knowledge: Understanding patterns and mechanisms

• From training and experience, you know that mild paresis with intact deep pain often responds well to strict rest and anti-inflammatory treatment, but recurrence risk is high.

• You also know that early surgical decompression may be advised in some cases to reduce recurrence and hasten recovery, especially if imaging confirms a significant disc extrusion.

• Prognosis for full recovery is excellent when pain perception is intact.

Wisdom: Judicious application of knowledge

• You explain to the owner that the dog’s prognosis is very good with proper management.

• You outline two main options: conservative therapy (crate rest, medications, monitoring) versus early surgical decompression if imaging supports it.

• You discuss costs, lifestyle, and the owner’s ability to enforce rest in an active Dachshund.

• Together, you select the option that maximizes the dog’s recovery while fitting the owner’s circumstances, ensuring the plan is both medically sound and realistic.

Where the Internet, Social Media, and AI Fit In

These tools now influence every stage of the DIKW process:

• At the Data stage

• Internet databases and AI can retrieve lab values, imaging results, and breed-specific reference ranges instantly.

• Social media can provide videos from owners that capture clinical signs you might not otherwise see

• But without vet-led verification, raw online data can be misleading.

• At the Information stage:

• AI can overlay context onto data, flagging values outside the norm or suggesting possible conditions.

• Professional forums and case databases add collective insight.

• Yet, context applied incorrectly online can turn misinformation into something dangerously convincing.

• At the Knowledge stage:

• Online CE, webinars, and AI-driven literature searches accelerate learning and pattern recognition.

• Social media case discussions expose vets to rare presentations.

• But over-reliance on crowd-sourced opinions or AI suggestions risks bypassing the clinician’s own reasoning.

• At the Wisdom stage:

• AI can model costs, outcomes, and probabilities, supporting transparent client conversations.

• Social media can help educate the public and promote animal welfare.

• But no algorithm or trending hashtag can replace the human judgment, empathy, and ethics that define wise clinical care.

The Case for an Online Universal Veterinary Library

Imagine a peer-reviewed, universally accessible, veterinary library that gives instant, brief, authentic answers to clinical questions.

• At the Data → Information stage:

• You enter canine ALT 420 U/L and instantly receive:

• Marked increase; normal 10–125 U/L.

• Common causes: hepatocellular injury, toxin ingestion, hyperadrenocorticism, muscle injury.

• Recommend repeat test + imaging.

• At the Information → Knowledge stage:

• It offers a concise explanation, common pitfalls, and a short differential diagnosis list, with links to deeper content if needed.

• At the Knowledge → Wisdom stage:

• It integrates decision-support tools, prognostic calculators, cost–benefit analyses, or regional disease prevalence overlays to help align medical facts with client realities.

The key would be brevity, accuracy, and peer review:

• Quick fact or definition

• Key differentials

• Next step recommendations

AI could handle lightning-fast retrieval and integration into Electronic Medical Records, while human experts ensure accuracy and currency.

This would democratize veterinary knowledge, giving rural and resource-limited practitioners the same rapid access as specialists at teaching hospitals.

Contextualized Care and the Gold Standard

• The gold standard in veterinary medicine is often defined by optimal diagnostics, the most effective treatments, and the most advanced interventions available. It’s what evidence-based medicine prescribes when resources and circumstances are unlimited.

• But contextualized care recognizes that every patient lives in a real-world setting, shaped by the client’s financial capacity, home environment, cultural values, and the animal’s temperament and prognosis. A true clinician’s wisdom lies in balancing gold-standard recommendations with practical, compassionate alternatives that still uphold patient welfare.

In DIKW terms

• Knowledge tells you what the gold standard is.

  
  

• Wisdom helps you decide when to recommend it, when to adapt it, and how to communicate those decisions without judgment or guilt.

The best care is not always the most expensive or technologically advanced.

It's the care that achieves the best possible outcome for that animal, in that situation, with the resources at hand.

Rick’s Commentary

• Information without knowledge risks misinterpretation, like treating a stress-hyperglycemic cat for diabetes.

• Knowledge without wisdom risks offering technically correct but poorly suited solutions.

• Wisdom is where the art and science of veterinary medicine meet. Knowing not only what you can do, but what you should do, and doing so in a way that fits the patient’s and client’s reality.

In practice, every case is a journey through this progression.

The science gives us the data.

Our training builds the knowledge.

And our humanity, supported, but never replaced, by technology, brings us to wisdom.

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