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Medical students who skip writing their own reflections are not lazy, they are surviving an irrational system. Kathleen Muldoon, a coach and professor, returns to discuss what student AI use in medical education actually reveals about the curriculum, the hidden incentives behind …
What’s actually behind medical students using AI [PODCAST]
Every day, I am invited into the most intimate and vulnerable chapters of another person’s life. Chapters no one ever plans for, marked by fear, grief, courage, and extraordinary love.
I have sat across from a 64-year-old man newly diagnosed with prostate cancer and watched tears fall from his eyes for the first time in over a decade. I have seen trembling hands of a young woman reach instinctively for her …
Oncology grief is the price of caring deeply for patients
As our calendars roll forward into the month of June, the summer season brings thoughts of family vacations, graduation ceremonies, and outdoor gatherings to many. But for me and others along the Gulf Coast, June 1 carries added meaning as …
Physicians and natural disasters: the fifth season
The most unsettling thing about artificial intelligence is not what it can do. It is what people feel when they talk to it.
I keep hearing the same things. “It listens.” “It doesn’t rush me.” “It helps me think.” “It seems to care.” Some people say this with embarrassment, as though confessing a weakness. Others say it with relief. A few say it with something close to gratitude.
These reactions have set …
AI in health care is a mirror, not a therapist
When a recent study in Nature Medicine compared general-purpose AI models with specialized clinical tools, the headline was exactly the kind the technology world likes to see: The generalists came out on top.
The reactions were predictable. Some observers treated the study as proof that specialized clinical software is no longer needed, arguing that bigger and more powerful AI models will always win. Others dismissed the study, pointing out that AI …
Why the safest medical AI knows when not to answer
I arrived at the office early that morning. The hospital still carried that mixture of stale coffee, disinfectant, and human exhaustion that exists only in medical corridors before eight in the morning. When I opened the door to the first examination room, I smiled peacefully. There sat Leon and Ilana. I had known them for so many years that it was impossible to remember when we had stopped addressing each …
Statistics are not destiny: a story of hope in oncology
New cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome guidance from the American Heart Association (AHA) reflects an important shift in how health care understands chronic disease.
For years, conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic kidney disease have often been discussed, managed and measured separately. The newest CKM framework recognizes a different reality: These conditions are deeply interconnected, driven by many of the same underlying metabolic processes and risk factors.
But perhaps …
Stop screening for chronic disease in silos
Words matter.
The words we use shape how we see one another, how we treat people, and how individuals see themselves. In health care, language determines whether someone feels respected or judged, supported or dismissed, empowered or ashamed. It directly influences quality of care, health outcomes, and whether a person ever returns to a health care setting. That is why the conversation surrounding obesity must change.
For decades, public discussion of obesity …
Weight stigma in health care is a health threat
The cost of health care in America is extraordinarily high, too often funding the wrong type of care. As a geriatric medicine and palliative care physician, I sit with patients and families making end-of-life decisions, weighing life-prolonging measures, optimizing quality of life, defining what matters most to them.
Recently, a 100-year-old man with severe dementia, limited mobility, hearing impairment, requiring assistance for his daily needs, was admitted to the hospital with …
When the right end-of-life care is hardest to access
They say a dying man doesn’t lie. But have you ever wondered why?
Is it a sudden surge of enlightenment? A newfound wisdom that only arrives when the clock begins to run out? Or is it something more visceral? The experience of being brought face-to-face with every morally questionable choice, every “snoozed” priority, and every unspoken truth?
Many religions speak of a Judgment Day or a Karma, a moment where we are …
Detachment is not strength: lessons from dying patients
The slogan of my high school was a verse from Proverbs: “Educate a child according to his way, and even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
I thought about that line a lot in PA school. And again in law school. And again last year, finishing my MBA at the USC Marshall School of Business in my late thirties.
My mother wanted me to be a doctor. Not …
Why leaving medicine for law is rarely about medicine
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Most patients on antidepressants are told they can’t take methylene blue, even for brain fog. Steven E. Warren, a physician and longevity medicine clinician, joins Kevin to discuss his KevinMD article “51 cases that reframe methylene blue serotonin syndrome.” You’ll hear …
Why most methylene blue cases came from anesthesia, not pills [PODCAST]
The patient would come in with a printout.
You know the one. Pulled from a website you’ve never heard of, about a mechanism you weren’t taught in medical school, asking about a test that isn’t in your standard workup. For a long time, my answer was some version of: I’m not familiar with that, the evidence isn’t there, let’s focus on what we know. Which was the honest answer. It was …
Guidelines are not evidence: the research to practice gap
I will never forget the look on his face. He wasn’t frightened. He wasn’t uncertain. He came into the hospital the way people used to come into courtrooms: with evidence already assembled, a verdict already reached, and very little interest in hearing otherwise. He had consulted an AI program before arriving, which had given him a diagnosis. He had read it, believed it, and arrived not as a patient seeking …
When the AI diagnosis arrives before the patient does
The morning it happened, I had just come back from a run. It was a beautiful day. I was training for a marathon, grateful for my life. I came home and stepped into the shower.
A family member I had welcomed in my home had a psychotic break and violently assaulted me with a kettlebell. The surgeon offered to schedule the repair of my severed tendon for the following morning. I …
Institutional betrayal in medicine nearly broke me
Health care spending in the United States reached about 18 percent of GDP in 2024, totaling $5.3 trillion, or roughly $15,474 per person. That’s dramatically higher than peer countries, which average around 11 percent. Yet patient outcomes haven’t kept pace.
Two major, interconnected problems stand out: exploding administrative overhead that diverts money away from actual care, and a systemic preference for treating problems after they occur rather than …
The hidden tax driving up U.S. health care costs
As I prepare to graduate medical school, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the person this journey has shaped me into and the person I still hope to become.
When I started medical school, I was driven by achievement. I wanted the best grades, strong evaluations, leadership positions, research, and ultimately a successful Match. I wanted to be seen as hardworking, dependable, compassionate, and capable. Looking back, I think …
Character is not reputation: a medical school reflection
Have you ever been cozy in bed, under your blankets, about to drift off to sleep, when suddenly the pile of clothes in the corner looks like a horrific creature that you’re sure, for a split moment, is real? Well, I have had that experience many times. When I am extremely fatigued while driving home at night, there’s a particular street sign that looks like a really tall man with …
Why seeing things doesn’t mean you’re losing your mind
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Up to 40 percent of infertility cases involve combined male and female factors, but the male partner is often skipped. Erica Bove, a reproductive endocrinology and infertility specialist, returns to discuss why that gap exists and what can be done about it. …
Low T treatment is silently destroying sperm counts [PODCAST]
To this day, I still don’t remember the car accident that changed my life. It was Thursday, August 8, 2024, a day like any other. I had gone to my local gym for an afternoon conditioning class. I finished hot and sweaty, grabbed my things, and walked toward the door. That’s the last thing I remember.
The next thing I’m aware of, I’m in a hospital bed, mid-conversation with a doctor. …
The delayed brain injury symptoms I almost ignored
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