KevinMD.com: Social media’s leading physician voice

The KevinMD newsletterReal physician voices, twice a weekFree, and one click to unsubscribe.
Subscribe free →

Health Policy

Voting and health outcomes: the cycle doctors ignore

Poor health can negatively impact any and all aspects of our lives, often discouraging us from participating fully in activities we otherwise would. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that those with worse health are also less likely to vote, or…

Poor health can negatively impact any and all aspects of our lives, often discouraging us from participating fully in activities we otherwise would. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that those with worse health are also less likely to vote, or that voter participation is inversely associated with time spent in inpatient care. And while we may accept this at face value, the downstream consequences of this are often …

Read more…

Voting and health outcomes: the cycle doctors ignore

Physician

Whole-person care starts in the operating room

For most of my career, my work has begun at the moment a patient is most vulnerable. As an anesthesiologist, I meet people at the threshold of surgery, often anxious, sometimes in pain, and always placing extraordinary trust in a…

For most of my career, my work has begun at the moment a patient is most vulnerable. As an anesthesiologist, I meet people at the threshold of surgery, often anxious, sometimes in pain, and always placing extraordinary trust in a physician they may have met only minutes earlier. My responsibility is to protect them through an experience they cannot control and, under general anesthesia, cannot describe while it is happening.

That …

Read more…

Whole-person care starts in the operating room

Physician

What doctors are talking about in 2026: AI, pain, burnout

Clinicians wrote about AI more than anything else this quarter. Readers spent their time elsewhere: on burnout, on pain and opioids, and on what medicine costs the people who practice it. The first Insights by KevinMD report.

Clinicians wrote about AI more than anything else this quarter. Readers spent their time elsewhere: on burnout, on pain and opioids, and on what medicine costs the people who practice it. The first Insights by KevinMD report.

What doctors are talking about in 2026: AI, pain, burnout

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

No spam. We never share your email.

Health Technology

AI hallucinations can invent what colleagues think of you

As physicians, we are increasingly told that artificial intelligence will summarize our work, amplify our ideas, and help readers understand complex issues. But what happens when AI begins describing not what we have said, but what it imagines others think…

As physicians, we are increasingly told that artificial intelligence will summarize our work, amplify our ideas, and help readers understand complex issues. But what happens when AI begins describing not what we have said, but what it imagines others think about us?

I recently conducted an informal experiment that exposed a troubling tendency in generative AI. After sharing excerpts from my manuscript The Autopsy, I asked Google’s Gemini a straightforward question: …

Read more…

AI hallucinations can invent what colleagues think of you

Conditions and Diseases

Losing your athletic identity after a heart diagnosis

A routine EKG at my annual physical was supposed to be uneventful. Instead, it ended my marathon career. This past winter, I was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a rare inherited heart disease associated with ventricular arrhythmias, sudden…

A routine EKG at my annual physical was supposed to be uneventful. Instead, it ended my marathon career.

This past winter, I was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a rare inherited heart disease associated with ventricular arrhythmias, sudden cardiac arrest, and an increased risk of life-threatening events during intense endurance exercise. I had no symptoms. No warning signs. I felt like the healthiest version of myself. Yet suddenly I …

Read more…

Losing your athletic identity after a heart diagnosis

Health Policy

Lancaster County measles outbreak exposes a crisis of trust

For ten years, I lived with my family, 45 minutes from the rolling clover fields and dairy farms of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, iconic markers of a world defined by quiet tradition. Yet in the fall of 2026, this peaceful landscape…

For ten years, I lived with my family, 45 minutes from the rolling clover fields and dairy farms of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, iconic markers of a world defined by quiet tradition. Yet in the fall of 2026, this peaceful landscape has become a dark microcosm of modern medicine’s greatest crisis: the weaponization of politics, the spread of bad-faith disinformation, and the collapse of public trust in the medical profession.

As Pennsylvania …

Read more…

Lancaster County measles outbreak exposes a crisis of trust

Physician

Slowing down in medicine starts with being interruptible

One morning I sat on the porch with a cup of tea and read slowly. Birds moved somewhere beyond the yard. Wind passed through the trees. The locusts were already loud. Nothing remarkable happened. And yet, after a while, I…

One morning I sat on the porch with a cup of tea and read slowly. Birds moved somewhere beyond the yard. Wind passed through the trees. The locusts were already loud. Nothing remarkable happened.

And yet, after a while, I had the strange sense that my mind had returned to me. There was enough. Enough time to finish the paragraph. Enough quiet to notice the air. Enough room for one thought …

Read more…

Slowing down in medicine starts with being interruptible

Conditions and Diseases

Studying chronic pain suicide risk after opioid tapering

CSI:OPIOIDs (Clinical Context of Suicide Following Opioid Transitions) is a rigorous scientific research study that systematically examines suicides occurring after prescription opioid dose reductions or discontinuations in patients with long-term (chronic) pain. Using psychological autopsy methods using detailed interviews with…

CSI:OPIOIDs (Clinical Context of Suicide Following Opioid Transitions) is a rigorous scientific research study that systematically examines suicides occurring after prescription opioid dose reductions or discontinuations in patients with long-term (chronic) pain. Using psychological autopsy methods using detailed interviews with bereaved survivors combined with medical record review where obtainable, it seeks to characterize the multifactorial demographic, societal, clinical, and health-system factors involved. The study began as a pilot supported by …

Read more…

Studying chronic pain suicide risk after opioid tapering

Health Policy

Why milk banks in emergencies must plan like blood banks

As more families depend on human milk banks to meet the vital health and nutritional needs of babies, these facilities should implement emergency response plans, similar to those in blood and tissue banks and other critical medical services. Human milk…

As more families depend on human milk banks to meet the vital health and nutritional needs of babies, these facilities should implement emergency response plans, similar to those in blood and tissue banks and other critical medical services. Human milk is a lifesaving resource for preterm, low-birth-weight, and critically ill infants, with the World Health Organization recommending pasteurized donor milk for babies who are unable to receive their …

Read more…

Why milk banks in emergencies must plan like blood banks

Podcast

Why women doctors leave in their forties and what keeps them [PODCAST]

Women physicians are walking away from practice in their forties, and not because they stopped loving the work. Dawn Sears is a gastroenterologist of 25 years and the founder of GutGirlMD Consulting, where she coaches physicians and runs Women in…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Youtube video

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

Women physicians are walking away from practice in their forties, and not because they stopped loving the work. Dawn Sears is a gastroenterologist of 25 years and the founder of GutGirlMD Consulting, where she coaches physicians and runs Women in Medicine groups. This episode is based on her article …

Read more…

Why women doctors leave in their forties and what keeps them [PODCAST]

Physician

The physician independent contractor path is a third option

For much of my medical training, I assumed there were two basic career paths for physicians. You could become an employed physician, trading some autonomy for stability and institutional support. Or you could own a practice, accepting the administrative and…

For much of my medical training, I assumed there were two basic career paths for physicians. You could become an employed physician, trading some autonomy for stability and institutional support. Or you could own a practice, accepting the administrative and financial responsibilities of running a business in exchange for greater control.

I ultimately chose neither.

For approximately a decade, I have built my clinical career primarily as an independent contractor. As an …

Read more…

The physician independent contractor path is a third option

Medical Education

Should medical student research be banned?

I run student and resident research projects as a trauma surgeon. For years the emails trickled in. This year they do not. Students arrive with a question and a draft and ask to be put on a paper. Large language…

I run student and resident research projects as a trauma surgeon. For years the emails trickled in. This year they do not. Students arrive with a question and a draft and ask to be put on a paper. Large language models made literature searches, coding, chart review, and a first manuscript cheaper. They noticed.

On August 20, Will Flanary, better known as Dr. Glaucomflecken, titled a podcast episode “Medical Student …

Read more…

Should medical student research be banned?

Health Policy

3 ways communities can ease the loneliness epidemic

Imagine if we only treated lung cancer and never tackled smoking. Is that what we're doing with depression? We always ask people struggling with depression to reach out. But maybe we should also ask whether anyone is within reach. Every…

Imagine if we only treated lung cancer and never tackled smoking. Is that what we’re doing with depression? We always ask people struggling with depression to reach out. But maybe we should also ask whether anyone is within reach.

Every October, Depression Awareness Month urges us to recognize the symptoms and seek help. As a physician, I support that message. As a public health and preventive medicine practitioner, I also ask …

Read more…

3 ways communities can ease the loneliness epidemic

Physician

Dual-physician couples don’t need work-life balance

We get asked this all the time: "How do you do it? How do you raise kids, manage a household, remember that someone needs poster board for school tomorrow, get everyone to practice, and somehow sustain two demanding physician careers?"…

We get asked this all the time: “How do you do it? How do you raise kids, manage a household, remember that someone needs poster board for school tomorrow, get everyone to practice, and somehow sustain two demanding physician careers?” The answer is: not gracefully. We have calendars. We have systems. We have childcare. We outsource things. We occasionally feed our children cereal for dinner, and somewhere, at almost all …

Read more…

Dual-physician couples don’t need work-life balance

Physician Finance

The 457(b) plan risks physicians sign without knowing

On a Tuesday evening, Dr. Anna Reyes is offered a partnership in an independent group across town. Accepting means leaving the nonprofit health system that employs her, and the buy-in requires capital within the year. Anna is hypothetical. That night,…

On a Tuesday evening, Dr. Anna Reyes is offered a partnership in an independent group across town. Accepting means leaving the nonprofit health system that employs her, and the buy-in requires capital within the year. Anna is hypothetical.

That night, she opens the statement for the 457(b) deferred compensation plan she has funded for eight years. The balance is about $500,000. She wants to know how much of it she can …

Read more…

The 457(b) plan risks physicians sign without knowing

Health Policy

The developmental pediatrician shortage is about to deepen

A recent Guardian article described a troubling reality unfolding across England: Nearly 1 million people are waiting for ADHD assessments, approximately 295,000 are awaiting autism evaluations, and some National Health Service (NHS) regions have imposed minimum waiting periods of two…

A recent Guardian article described a troubling reality unfolding across England: Nearly 1 million people are waiting for ADHD assessments, approximately 295,000 are awaiting autism evaluations, and some National Health Service (NHS) regions have imposed minimum waiting periods of two years before patients can even be assessed. “Two-year waiting times highlight NHS struggle with rise in ADHD and autism awareness” reported that overwhelmed health systems are struggling to keep …

Read more…

The developmental pediatrician shortage is about to deepen

Podcast

Loneliness, not weakness, is driving women out of medicine [PODCAST]

Medical training hands you a ready-made group of friends. Then it ends, and many women physicians find themselves starting over alone in a new city. Cassie Burton Greenbaum is a pediatric critical care physician and the founder of Off Service…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Youtube video

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

Medical training hands you a ready-made group of friends. Then it ends, and many women physicians find themselves starting over alone in a new city. Cassie Burton Greenbaum is a pediatric critical care physician and the founder of Off Service Mom Co., a friendship matchmaking service for physician moms. …

Read more…

Loneliness, not weakness, is driving women out of medicine [PODCAST]

Physician

My first year as an attending physician almost broke me

I can finally write this essay almost five years out. That's how long it took me to fully heal. To process. To gain perspective. I graduated residency in June 2020 at the height of COVID. I, along with my family,…

I can finally write this essay almost five years out. That’s how long it took me to fully heal. To process. To gain perspective.

I graduated residency in June 2020 at the height of COVID. I, along with my family, including my husband, two preschoolers, a four-month-old infant, and two dogs, drove from Miami to Chicago to complete an amazing fellowship. The year was perfect, though masked, sometimes scary, and full …

Read more…

My first year as an attending physician almost broke me

Medications

Does CVS controlled substance policy put patients at risk?

Recently, a close friend called me in a panic. He was running dangerously low on lorazepam and asked if I could prescribe a small, bridging quantity over the weekend until his regular refill was due in a few days. As…

Recently, a close friend called me in a panic. He was running dangerously low on lorazepam and asked if I could prescribe a small, bridging quantity over the weekend until his regular refill was due in a few days. As a physician, I wanted to help, but I first advised him to do what any reasonable patient would: call his pharmacy, CVS, explain the situation, and ask for a sliver …

Read more…

Does CVS controlled substance policy put patients at risk?

Health Policy

First Nations health care: Consultation is not control

Canadian health organizations invite First Nations representatives to comment on services after budgets and priorities have already taken shape. Consultation can improve a proposal, but it offers limited influence when the decisions remain elsewhere. Health equity requires First Nations to…

Canadian health organizations invite First Nations representatives to comment on services after budgets and priorities have already taken shape. Consultation can improve a proposal, but it offers limited influence when the decisions remain elsewhere. Health equity requires First Nations to take the lead in services that affect their communities, supported by adequate resources and clear accountability.

For physicians, governance may seem distant from the examination room. Yet governance determines whether patients …

Read more…

First Nations health care: Consultation is not control

1567
pages