KevinMD.com

Fragmented health records fail the women who wait longest

Niki Panich, MD, MBA

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

A friend of my mother's went in for routine surgery prep and had her blood drawn. The test showed critically low hemoglobin, and no one followed up. Three months later she saw the surgeon, had the test redrawn, and the…

A friend of my mother’s went in for routine surgery prep and had her blood drawn. The test showed critically low hemoglobin, and no one followed up. Three months later she saw the surgeon, had the test redrawn, and the result was the same. The low hemoglobin had been an early sign of colon cancer, already advanced by the time she was diagnosed. The number that might have saved her …

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

Dopamine agonist withdrawal is a foreseeable injury

Jessica Fausnaugh

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

Dopamine agonist withdrawal syndrome (DAWS). That is its name. Named in the literature since 2010. Diagnostic criteria exist. It affects, by conservative estimate, one in five to one in four patients who taper off these drugs. This is not a mystery ailment. It is a known, foreseeable medical injury, and foreseeable harm that goes unwarned and unmonitored is not bad luck. It is a failure of duty. If this profession …

Will digital therapeutics for schizophrenia reach families?

Nicole Drapeau Gillen

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

This month, Click Therapeutics announced that the FDA has cleared Motivista, a smartphone-based prescription digital therapeutic for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. It is the first prescription digital therapeutic cleared for schizophrenia, and the company calls it the first authorized…

Why negative symptoms matter so much

When most people picture schizophrenia, they picture hallucinations and delusions. Medication …

Chronic kidney disease can hide behind a normal blood test

Dr. Girishkumar Modi

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

A normal creatinine result can be reassuring. But for someone with diabetes, high blood pressure, or another risk factor for kidney disease, it may answer only part of the question. Creatinine helps us estimate how well the kidneys filter blood. It does not tell us whether albumin, a protein normally kept in the bloodstream, is leaking into the urine. Before we describe a kidney assessment as complete, we should know …

Dark humor in medicine: when coping becomes cruelty

Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

An excerpt from METACINE: Essays on Health Care in a Changing World. Sometimes I use humor in my writing. Humor has always coexisted with suffering. In the high-stakes, emotionally draining world of medicine, comedy is rarely lighthearted. Instead, it takes…

An excerpt from METACINE: Essays on Health Care in a Changing World.

Sometimes I use humor in my writing. Humor has always coexisted with suffering. In the high-stakes, emotionally draining world of medicine, comedy is rarely lighthearted. Instead, it takes the form of gallows humor: a sharp, cynical, and dark style of joking that addresses illness, trauma, and death.

Medical professionals routinely encounter situations that would overwhelm a layperson. To cope …

Kevin Biese, MD & Melissa Martin, MHA

Patients using AI want a collaborator, not an authority

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the rules of engagement between patients and providers. According to a recent survey from the West Health-Gallup Center on Healthcare in America, one in four Americans now use AI tools for health information or advice.…

Most say they’re not trying to bypass providers; they simply want to be better prepared for appointments. Nearly half said their AI-generated research made them feel more confident discussing their …

Raman Kaur, AGNP-C, RN-BSN

Sleep apnea and depression: Screen before a third drug

Ravi Singareddy, MD

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

In a community study of 700 men, 43 percent of those who had both obstructive sleep apnea and insomnia met criteria for depression. That compared with 22 percent of those with insomnia alone and just 8 percent of those with…

That gradient captures something most of us see every week but rarely name. The patient who comes to me on referral has usually cycled through two or three …

Education

AI in health care education must point back to the source

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

When health care students turn to AI for help with a difficult medical concept, a quick answer is only part of what they need. They also need confidence that the information is accurate, aligned with what they are learning, and…

In health care education, students are learning material that will shape how they think, communicate, and care for people throughout their careers. Educators …

Why I built a medical home model for military families

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

The Franklin Medal sits in a box in my attic. Most days I don't think about it. Life has a way of burying old honors beneath newer responsibilities. Yet every so often I remember that silver medal and what it…

The Franklin Medal sits in a box in my attic. Most days I don’t think about it. Life has a way of burying old honors beneath newer responsibilities. Yet every so often I remember that silver medal and what it represents.

I am not a descendant of Benjamin Franklin. I am one of his heirs.

More than two centuries ago, Franklin left money to the city of Boston to reward academic merit …

Organ procurement and the 1,784-day wait that changed me

John C. Springer, CST

October 12, 2026Oct 12, 2026

I used to believe that reverence required silence. Years ago, when I first stood at the table during an organ procurement, I carried an expectation that now feels almost childlike in its purity. I wanted the room to feel sacred.…

I used to believe that reverence required silence.

Years ago, when I first stood at the table during an organ procurement, I carried an expectation that now feels almost childlike in its purity. I wanted the room to feel sacred. I wanted the air itself to acknowledge that a human being, still warm, still perfused, still carrying the quiet dignity of a life recently lived, lay before us. I expected every …

Podcast

Stop calling it burnout: COVID denial and the wounds ER doctors carry [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

October 11, 2026Oct 11, 2026

An emergency physician bought a new iPad and found 53 phone numbers he had forgotten were there. Each one was a family he put on a video call to say goodbye before he intubated their loved one. Howie Mell is…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Listen and followApple Podcasts Spotify YouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

Digital eye strain may be masking dry eye disease

Pam Theriot, OD

October 11, 2026Oct 11, 2026

More than 16 million Americans are estimated to have a diagnosis of dry eye disease. And the number of symptomatic patients living without a diagnosis is thought to be almost double. As a health care provider, these patients come through your office every day. You can help them get the care they need before suffering from a significant decrease in their workplace productivity, or an increase in symptoms of anxiety …

Why does the male infertility evaluation start so late?

Justin Houman, MD

October 11, 2026Oct 11, 2026

Three years into their infertility workup, after a second failed transfer, a couple came to see me. She had been the patient that entire time. Hysterosalpingogram, diagnostic laparoscopy, two retrievals, somewhere north of $40,000 that their insurance didn’t touch. He came to the appointment because their REI had finally suggested it, and I think he was mostly there to be supportive.

He brought a folder. In it was a semen analysis …

Robert Pretzlaff, MD, MBA

The scarlet letter O: a physician on Ozempic stigma

October 11, 2026Oct 11, 2026

Stop your moralizing. I grow weary of your superior airs. I am a 60-plus-year-old physician who has led a disciplined life. Despite going to the gym two to three times a week and with an acute awareness of my caloric…

Stop your moralizing. I grow weary of your superior airs.

I am a 60-plus-year-old physician who has led a disciplined life. Despite going to the gym two to three times a week and with an acute awareness of my caloric intake, I had been overweight for many years. I, along with nearly three-quarters of Americans, have committed the sin of being heavy. Today I have a BMI slightly above 25 and …

Terry Adirim, MD, MPH, MBA

How to prepare for a doctor’s appointment and be heard

October 11, 2026Oct 11, 2026

An excerpt from The Prepared Patient: Your Guide to Surviving the Health Care System. In today's health care system, patient-centered care often feels more like an unattainable ideal than a reality. Systemic inefficiencies seem to overshadow the promise of collaboration,…

An excerpt from The Prepared Patient: Your Guide to Surviving the Health Care System.

In today’s health care system, patient-centered care often feels more like an unattainable ideal than a reality. Systemic inefficiencies seem to overshadow the promise of collaboration, empathy, and individualized attention, while rushed appointments and fragmented communication prevail. The result? A disconnect between what patients need and what the system delivers.

One of the most significant barriers to …

Medical malpractice verdicts rarely heal what hurts

Anthony Grandelis, MD

October 11, 2026Oct 11, 2026

We have built a society that runs on the promise of justice, and it is quietly making us miserable. We wait for the verdict, the apology, the firing, the settlement. We believe that when it comes, the wrong will be righted and we will finally feel whole. But, to me, the idea that justice rights a wrong is not true. We only think it makes us feel better. But does …