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What happens when a patient makes a reasonable, informed decision to skip a non-mandatory test and the system simply stops? Patient advocate Aaron S. Rosenberg shares how a routine dental visit became a …
He declined routine X-rays and was denied a dental cleaning [PODCAST]
A patient nods. You explain the diagnosis. You review the plan. You answer questions. You feel like the visit went well.
“Any questions?” you ask.
“No, I am good.”
They leave. And if you are honest, there is a moment, sometimes fleeting, sometimes not, where you wonder: Did they actually understand any of that? As you know, you have to pick up the pace to see another patient. In modern medicine, we measure …
Why patient understanding is the missing metric in medicine
Nursing education is at a breaking point. In classrooms and clinical sites across the country, faculty are stretched thin while students struggle to get the hands-on experiences that build confidence for day one of practice. The result is mounting pressure to expand access without sacrificing quality. Programs must graduate nurses who are technically competent and truly practice-ready, in a profession evolving faster than ever. Striking that balance with lectures, clinicals, …
Transforming nursing education with immersive technology
You know what it feels like to keep working and pushing yourself when you are tired, distracted, or maybe even burned out. It’s common across professions, and we rarely speak about it openly. We almost never think of it as a safety issue. But for airline pilots, that silence can put hundreds of lives at risk.
That is why I believe this belongs in a conversation among clinicians. Medicine is often …
Pilot mental health is a safety issue, not a stigma
I am a registered nurse with 16 years of bedside experience, and I have come to understand a problem in health care that is rarely named directly: The conditions we work under shape what we are able to perceive. Care is still delivered. The chart is complete, the discharge is placed, and the bed opens. From the outside, the system appears to function, but something essential is missing, and the …
How high pressure destroys relational care in nursing
The current U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has consistently captured public attention with his actions and rhetoric, but one aspect of his public health agenda that has received comparatively little scrutiny is his proposed reconceptualization of addiction treatment, undergirded by his support for and stated intent to emulate Patrignano. Patrignano is an addiction treatment program in Italy where people who use drugs (PWUD) participate …
Why Kennedy’s addiction treatment plan raises ethical concerns
It started with a headache. At least, that is what she told the nurse. A middle-aged woman sat quietly in the outpatient clinic, her hands folded tightly in her lap. She had visited the hospital three times in two months complaining of headaches, fatigue, and body pains. Her blood pressure was normal. Her blood tests were unremarkable. Her physical examination revealed nothing alarming. Yet something was clearly wrong. After a …
Why mental health care in Nigeria needs a new approach
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When did volunteering stop being a choice and start being a condition of professionalism? Pediatrician, certified coach, and mindfulness and yoga teacher Jessie Mahoney realized she had donated over 2,000 hours of uncompensated …
She donated 2,000 hours of unpaid labor before she even noticed [PODCAST]
Long before I stood on collapsing bridges between DBP and NDD, I was the 1977 kid who intentionally derailed Bobby Jr.’s grand “seed money” scheme for free home heating oil for the poor, not out of mischief, but because there was no plan behind it. It was a hallucinogenic vision dressed up as strategy, with no capability for realization. Even then, I could not pretend something workable existed when it …
Bridging the gap in neurodevelopmental care and pediatrics
Imagine going to the hospital after nine months of pregnancy expecting to have a perfect birth and baby only to suffer from a tragic birth complication. Your doctor shares that your baby has a brain injury and must be transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for cooling treatment. You meet your baby surrounded by machines and loud monitors. For three long days during this cooling treatment, you are …
Artificial intelligence is reshaping how health care organizations support clinicians and, ultimately, how they care for patients. That transformation, however, is unfolding along two very different paths at the point of care.
In one model, adoption is clinician-driven. Tools are downloaded, tested, and incorporated into daily practice without formal enterprise involvement. This organic uptake often reflects real clinical need, especially in environments defined by time pressure and cognitive overload. But it …
4 questions to ask about enterprise AI drug dosing
In the golden days of practicing medicine, the hospitals’ boards were composed of community leaders acting on behalf of the hospitals to raise funds, negotiate insurance contracts, screen and supervise the performance of the key employees, and interact with the government. They used their passion and influence to facilitate the delivery of health care to the communities they served. Most of these board members were volunteers or philanthropists. A few …
How corporate health care ruined the medical profession
In 2023, I was in a serious motor vehicle collision. The injury that followed, a vertebral artery dissection, required real recovery. I did the work and thought I had come out the other side. I was looking forward to celebrating my three-year anniversary since the accident. I was feeling grateful. I was not expecting what came next.
The bike
I love spinning. The bike was the first thing I reclaimed after the …
A physician’s journey with a hidden CSF leak and delayed diagnosis
Despite the emergence of new pharmacologic alternatives to traditional bariatric surgery, the global obesity epidemic continues to escalate. Semaglutides, while effective for some, are costly, require weekly injections, and often cause side effects that lead many patients to discontinue treatment and subsequently regain much or all the weight they lost. Both bypass and restrictive bariatric procedures carry significant risks, side effects, and long-term lifestyle adjustments, and most patients ultimately reach …
Bariatric surgery vs. semaglutides vs. endoscopic visceral lipectomy
It was March 9, 2026. I remember the moment vividly. I woke up with a mix of excitement and hope, about to open the email that would determine whether I had matched into residency. Deep down, I believed I had done everything right. During my external rotations, I gave more than 100 percent. If I was asked for one thing, I delivered two, and I made sure they were done …
Failing the residency match: What I learned from not matching
“What is that?” I was sitting in the emergency room during my emergency medicine rotation, chatting with my attending when he had asked me what residency program I was in. I told him I was actually doing two: family medicine and preventive medicine. Family medicine he had heard of, but preventive medicine? Only a confused look. And he is not the only one. In medical school, there was no specialty …
Why the U.S. needs more preventive medicine and public health doctors
One of the most damaging patterns in health care is also one of the most accepted: delayed diagnosis.
What stays with me is not only the diagnosis that came too late. It is everything that happened before it. The months. Sometimes the years. The symptoms that were minimized, misread, or explained away. The patient who was still struggling, but without enough clarity to move care forward. The family trying to function …
The hidden costs of delayed diagnosis and diagnostic ambiguity
As physicians who regularly work with pediatric patients, and experts in counter-terrorism, we know firsthand the dangers that online radicalization poses to youth. Nihilistic violent extremism (NVE), which glorifies violence for the sake of violence, is on the rise globally. Many of these decentralized online networks, such as the 764 Network, specifically target children for recruitment. 764 has seen a sharp increase in popularity, and has become the …
The true crime community is radicalizing kids online
Once the lockdowns from COVID-19 began, a new normal of distrusting America’s public health officials started. Dr. Anthony Fauci quickly became the most famous and controversial physician in America. At the start of the pandemic, having the responsibility of communicating information and data with the entire country, his advice was trusted by most Americans; a Kaiser Family Foundation survey showed that in December 2020, 90 percent of Democrats and …
Why the doctor-patient relationship survives when trust in public health fails
An excerpt from The DNA of a Doctor: How Upbringing, Culture, and Unbridled Ambition Curates Achievement.
Having the support of male colleagues and mentors was not new to me. I could not have gotten through plastic surgery residency without my male co-residents. Being the only woman in my class and the classes I was sandwiched between could be daunting. My male co-residents were a blessing, they looked after me, and …
Navigating medical training and residency as a female plastic surgeon
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