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Erta Priadi Wirawijaya, MD

What happens after hypertension screening finds a problem?

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 2026

A blood pressure cuff can identify risk in less than a minute. A health system has to keep acting for years. Indonesia is learning that distinction at enormous scale. In August 2026, the Ministry of Health reported that about one…

A blood pressure cuff can identify risk in less than a minute. A health system has to keep acting for years.

Indonesia is learning that distinction at enormous scale. In August 2026, the Ministry of Health reported that about one million people were newly detected with hypertension among 9.2 million participants in the country’s free health-check program who had not been found to have high blood pressure the previous year.

The headline …

Medical storytelling and the doctor who forgot his lines

Ian Barbash, MD

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 2026

It wasn't a great performance. It might not even have been good. But I did it. When I stepped down from the stage, I just felt relieved. I had diligently memorized my lines. I started off by telling the audience…

It wasn’t a great performance. It might not even have been good. But I did it. When I stepped down from the stage, I just felt relieved.

I had diligently memorized my lines. I started off by telling the audience about the time I nearly tipped over trying to put on my underwear. That drew a laugh, as I had hoped it would. For the next seven minutes, the performance went …

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Health policy

Surgery center profit margins were highest at nonprofits

Brian Hudes, MD

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 2026

A research letter published in JAMA Health Forum on September 25, 2026, examined the 2024 financial reports of 257 ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) in Pennsylvania. The finding was not what the usual debate over outpatient medicine would lead you to…

Nonprofit centers represented 20.6 percent of the facilities. They collected 35.8 percent of the revenue and earned 51.5 percent of the net income. Their median profit margin was 37.8 percent. …

Surgical pipeline visibility starts with the coordinator

Alisa Vaughn

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 2026

Specialty practices are investing in executive dashboards that show surgical pipeline, volume projections, and cases at risk. Most of them are looking at a picture that is days behind. The reason is that the surgical coordinator responsible for keeping those cases moving is still working the case in a spreadsheet, an inbox, and a phone queue, and entering it into the system of record whenever there is time. If the …

How serial patent litigation delays cheaper generic drugs

Reuben Mathew, MD

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 2026

As a physician caring for patients in New Orleans, I see the consequences of America's prescription drug affordability crisis every day. Many of my patients need essential medications like insulin, blood thinners, and inhalers to manage chronic conditions that impact…

As a physician caring for patients in New Orleans, I see the consequences of America’s prescription drug affordability crisis every day. Many of my patients need essential medications like insulin, blood thinners, and inhalers to manage chronic conditions that impact their day-to-day lives. But far too often, these medicines are unaffordable, even for patients with solid health insurance.

One major reason prescription medicines are so expensive is a little-known Big Pharma …

Frivolous malpractice lawsuits need a quantitative test

Howard Smith, MD

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 2026

Many books describe medical malpractice. Among them are Medical Malpractice; Medical Malpractice: A Physician's Sourcebook; The Malpractice Myth; A Measure of Malpractice: Medical Injury, Malpractice Litigation, and Patient Compensation; Medical Malpractice: Theory, Evidence, and Public Policy; To Err Is Human;…

Many books describe medical malpractice. Among them are Medical Malpractice; Medical Malpractice: A Physician’s Sourcebook; The Malpractice Myth; A Measure of Malpractice: Medical Injury, Malpractice Litigation, and Patient Compensation; Medical Malpractice: Theory, Evidence, and Public Policy; To Err Is Human; Medical Law and Ethics; and Medical Liability and Treatment Relationships: A Physician’s Insight Into Medical Negligence. These are all described as “groundbreaking.”

I developed a decision-making method that I call Collate, …

What 3 bicycles taught me about physician resilience

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 2026

When I was ten years old in Japan, I got a bicycle. It was a simple machine: one speed, coaster brake, no gears, and no pretensions. Designed for the flat Kanto Plain surrounding Tokyo, it was perfectly suited for its environment. For the next decade, it carried me through childhood, adolescence, and multiple moves as an Air Force dependent. The bicycle never failed me.

After my father died and our family …

Why storytelling in health care outlasts the algorithm

Ryan McCarthy, MD

October 24, 2026Oct 24, 2026

On Friday, March 13, 2020, Governor Jim Justice held a press conference, one I watched virtually, and, as I ate cheddar cheese and Triscuits and put my feet on my desk, I felt unwell. The previous weekend had been the last “normal” thing my son, Isaac, would do in high school, the West Virginia All-State High School Band. And by “normal” I mean a superspreader event where my entire family …

Disability claim denied? Your chart notes may be why. [PODCAST]

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

The words you put in a patient's chart can be used to deny their disability claim. A note that says "stable" or "improved" can mean one thing to you and another to the insurer. Jennifer Hess, an ERISA disability attorney…

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The words you put in a patient’s chart can be used to deny their disability claim. A note that says “stable” or “improved” can mean one thing to you and another to the insurer. Jennifer Hess, an ERISA disability attorney and Riemer Hess partner, represents physicians and other professionals in …

Medical education

Nutrition training for doctors needs more than 40 hours

Bret Scher, MD

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced an initiative to improve nutrition education across every stage of physician education and training. As part of the effort, dozens of medical schools have pledged to include forty hours of…

Those pledges take aim at a longstanding gap. Medical schools currently devote less than 1 percent of lecture hours to nutrition, …

Subscriber Spotlight by KevinMD

Francisco M. Torres, MD, on back pain and evidence-based wellness: a KevinMD subscriber spotlight

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

Francisco M. Torres, MD, is an interventional physiatrist who specializes in spine-related pain syndromes at Florida Spine Institute and Wellness in Clearwater, Florida, and is certified by the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and the American Board of…

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Health policy

Teen driver insurance protects your child when others crash

Michael L. Saile Jr., Esq

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

As the father of three active boys, including two teenagers approaching driving age, I know the day I hand over the car keys isn't far off. Right now, our days are filled with practices, wrestling meets, school activities, and the…

As the father of three active boys, including two teenagers approaching driving age, I know the day I hand over the car keys isn’t far off. Right now, our days are filled with practices, wrestling meets, school activities, and the constant shuffle of getting everyone where they need to be. Before long, they’ll be the ones behind the wheel, driving themselves to those same activities. Like most parents, I’ll worry …

Leaving clinical practice without leaving medicine

Riya Joshi, MD, PhD, MPH

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

There was a time when my daily work meant sitting across from a patient in an exam room. I listened to symptoms, asked questions, performed physical examinations, ordered laboratory tests, tried to arrive at a diagnosis, and then prescribed medicine. Today, my world looks very different. The person sitting across from me has been replaced by a screen. Instead of examining patients, I examine datasets, clinical trial tables and listings, …

Aleksandra Filipovic, MD, PhD

Why cancer metaphors of war and battle fail patients

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

For decades, we have talked about cancer as a war to be won. Patients are told to fight, to battle, to beat the disease. In oncology, this language is so deeply embedded that we rarely stop to question it. Yet…

Yet words do more than describe our experiences. Alongside medical therapies, they can shape how patients understand their illness, what they expect from treatment, and how they experience care.

After more than twenty …

Health technology

Fax in health care costs hospitals more than they realize

Anita L. Carson, DBA

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

Health care delivery organizations face substantial budgetary pressures. U.S. health care organizations face heavy administrative burdens that consume nearly a quarter of all health care spending, amounting to $950 billion in 2021. Adding to the financial strain, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July 2025, will reduce Medicaid spending by at least $700 billion over the next 10 years, with 20 states’ Medicaid budgets …

Health technology

Predictive AI in health care flags risk. Who acts on it?

Dr. Sarima Chinda

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

Artificial intelligence is transforming health care's ability to anticipate disease, identify vulnerable populations, and support clinical decision-making. From predicting hospital readmissions to identifying individuals at increased risk of chronic conditions, AI-powered technologies promise to make health care more proactive, efficient,…

Artificial intelligence is transforming health care’s ability to anticipate disease, identify vulnerable populations, and support clinical decision-making. From predicting hospital readmissions to identifying individuals at increased risk of chronic conditions, AI-powered technologies promise to make health care more proactive, efficient, and responsive. However, while considerable attention has been devoted to improving the accuracy and sophistication of these technologies, a more fundamental question remains insufficiently addressed: What happens after a patient …

What The Hunger Games reveals about moral injury in medicine

Dr. Rida Jawed

October 23, 2026Oct 23, 2026

Shortly after graduating from my emergency medicine training, I reread The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I didn't expect a dystopian novel to follow me into the emergency department, but it did. Somewhere between ambulance radios, a full waiting room,…

Shortly after graduating from my emergency medicine training, I reread The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I didn’t expect a dystopian novel to follow me into the emergency department, but it did. Somewhere between ambulance radios, a full waiting room, and those pages, I realized how familiar the logic felt. Not the violence. The structure.

Both worlds revolve around the same question: What happens when there isn’t enough, and someone has …

Doctors lose hours to admin work that AI or an assistant could do [PODCAST]

October 22, 2026Oct 22, 2026

Many doctors who run their own practices spend hours on work someone else could do. One practice owner who charges $300 an hour was his own receptionist, verifying insurance all night and stepping away from a family dinner to take…

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