January 2018

January 12, 2018Jan 12, 2018

It's another day for me as an intern on the labor-and-delivery floor of my large urban hospital — another day scrambling to help pregnant women deliver and trying to keep pace with the unpredictable timetable of the birthing process. My…

It’s another day for me as an intern on the labor-and-delivery floor of my large urban hospital — another day scrambling to help pregnant women deliver and trying to keep pace with the unpredictable timetable of the birthing process.

My hospital phone rings. I’m really starting to dread that sound.

It’s the triage nurse. We’re admitting a patient: Mrs. Harris, age thirty-four, who’s had several prior deliveries and therefore carries the label …

Health policy

Why health care replaced physician care

Michael Weiss, MD

January 12, 2018Jan 12, 201815

Ever wonder what health care really means and why it’s even used? When you’re sick, do you need health care or a doctor? Maybe as physicians, we need to ask the same about the words "health care provider." On April…

Ever wonder what health care really means and why it’s even used? When you’re sick, do you need health care or a doctor? Maybe as physicians, we need to ask the same about the words “health care provider.”

On April 11, 1993, The New York Times editor William Safire commented on the attempt at the time to label physicians as providers:

As a physician, I am somewhat distressed

…

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Why health care replaced physician care

Physician voices

#MeToo: “I think I was raped,” my patient said

Andrea Eisenberg, MD

January 12, 2018Jan 12, 201810

Recently, I watched the movie Iron Jawed Angels with my daughter for her high school literature class. It retells the story of the women’s suffrage movement in the early 1900s, highlighting what the suffragettes endured to fight for women’s right to vote. Many brave women were taunted and tortured, arrested while peacefully protesting and then brutally beaten in prison, and, for some, ostracized from their community, family, and friends. Incredibly, …

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Physician finance

Physicians need a new attitude towards debt

Cory Fawcett, MD

January 12, 2018Jan 12, 20189

I am continually running into people who are confused as to what constitutes debt when we are doing a makeover with their spending plans. Wikipedia defines debt as money owed by one party, the borrower or debtor, to a second…

I have clients who list out their accounts payable as personal debt. For example, they see the dentist, and he is going to send a $200 …

Physician voices

The critical importance of wisdom

Edwin Leap, MD

January 11, 2018Jan 11, 2018

What are the most important things we can teach our kids? These days there are a lot of possible answers. Obviously, STEM skills (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) often lead to lucrative, stable careers; they seem to be tickets to “the good life,” or so we’re taught. Languages are helpful. You can’t go wrong with basic computer programming skills.

But in a world where people seem increasingly unkind, dishonest, greedy, violent and …

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The critical importance of wisdom

Physician voices

We need to embrace our failures

Sasha K. Shillcutt, MD

January 11, 2018Jan 11, 2018

When doing scientific research, we expect to fail. In fact, we write the likelihood of negative findings into our protocols and plans. We expect things to not always work as we think they might, and we accept that we may…

In the scientific community, we depend on complete transparency when we fail. We depend on it to advance science, to help people, and …

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We need to embrace our failures

Physician voices

Is work-life balance for physicians a unicorn?

Rogue Dad, MD

January 11, 2018Jan 11, 2018

This discussion is something I’ve tossed around in my head for awhile. As I have gone back and forth on the topic, I decided to debate myself while I answer the question: Is work-life balance a real thing? If so,…

This discussion is something I’ve tossed around in my head for awhile. As I have gone back and forth on the topic, I decided to debate myself while I answer the question:

Is work-life balance a real thing? If so, what is it and can it be achieved, specifically in a demanding field such as medicine that often expects your job to be your life?

In this corner: Cynical Rogue Dad

Of course, …

Physician voices

Are physicians losing the healing touch?

American College of Physicians & Philip A. Masters, MD

January 11, 2018Jan 11, 2018

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. I keenly remember the thrill of making my way to the medical bookstore as an early first-year student to buy my first stethoscope. Although receiving the short white…

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.

I keenly remember the thrill of making my way to the medical bookstore as an early first-year student to buy my first stethoscope.

Although receiving the short white coat at the start of medical school symbolizing the transition into the medical profession was incredibly meaningful, the stethoscope was a much more tangible indicator of the …

Physician voices

Why physicians need side gigs

Nisha Mehta, MD

January 11, 2018Jan 11, 20182

At first, it may seem strange that "physician" and "side gig" are even used in the same sentence. After all, the average physician in the United States is already working more than a 40 hour work week and struggling with…

At first, it may seem strange that “physician” and “side gig” are even used in the same sentence. After all, the average physician in the United States is already working more than a 40 hour work week and struggling with issues related to work-life balance. As someone who talks about physician burnout and as the founder of the Physician Side Gigs Facebook group, I’ve been asked many times how adding …

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Why physicians need side gigs

Physician finance

This physician’s keys to financial freedom

Another Second Opinion, MD

January 11, 2018Jan 11, 20182

Never was I used to having money to invest; it seemed like I always found a way to make income equal expenses. Such was the life of the young, naive 20-something-year-old who had no idea how to build assets. Going…

Going into my 30s, I began to read more, study more, and inquire more when it came to finances. This led me to finally figure out what this investing thing was all …

Conditions and diseases

What’s the latest on estrogen use in post-menopausal women?

Janice Boughton, MD

January 10, 2018Jan 10, 20183

Estrogen is a miracle drug for many women who experience the drenching sweats, sexual dysfunction and frustrating brain betrayals associated with entering menopause. It comes in expensive patches, less expensive pills or injections, as well as vaginal creams or rings.…

Estrogen is the main ingredient in most birth control pills and has been studied extensively in that …

Health policy

The CVS-Aetna merger: millions of lives hang in the balance

Niran S. Al-Agba, MD

January 10, 2018Jan 10, 201830

Recently, pharmacy giant CVS agreed to purchase Aetna for an astounding $69 billion dollar sum. The company allegedly plans to reduce health spending by developing an integrated system touted as “a new front door for health care in America.” This merger is actually an acquisition, entailing transfer of ownership. The central aim of an acquisition is to increase market share, expand the scope of services provided, and improve financial …

Drugs and prescribing

Here’s why doctors must know prescription costs

Mark Kelley, MD

January 10, 2018Jan 10, 20186

As the health care debate drags on, prescription drug costs continue to rise by almost 10 percent annually. It is the rare patient who is spared this expense. Over the years, I have seen how these costs have affected my…

As the health care debate drags on, prescription drug costs continue to rise by almost 10 percent annually. It is the rare patient who is spared this expense.

Over the years, I have seen how these costs have affected my patients. At first, most patients had little in the way of co-pays. However, once the local economy deteriorated, co-pays skyrocketed as employers tried to curb their health care expenses. Now, large …

Health policy

Health care and the airline industry have a lot in common

Abraham Morse, MD, MBA

January 10, 2018Jan 10, 201810

There are many apt comparisons to be made between aviation and health care. As a (lapsed) instrument-rated pilot, I may have some insight about the system in which planes function on a daily basis in the United States. It is truly an impressive system which is (to paraphrase Don Berwick) well-designed to achieve the safety results that it does. However, the kind of statement that some health care safety leaders …

Physician voices

Structured settlements are ruining patients’ lives

Thomas D. Guastavino, MD

January 10, 2018Jan 10, 20185

There are a lot of TV commercials for structured settlement companies these days. You know, the companies that say if you are cash-strapped but have a structured settlement they will be happy to buy your settlement and give you “cash now.” Some of the commercials are quite clever and catchy featuring everything from operettas to boy bands. After seeing so many of these, one has to conclude that there has …

Physician finance

How the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act affects this two-physician couple

Passive Income, MD

January 10, 2018Jan 10, 2018

The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is controversial, to say the least. However you feel about it though, the fact is it’s here to stay, affecting everyone by 2018. However, in looking at our own situation as a…

The recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is controversial, to say the least. However you feel about it though, the fact is it’s here to stay, affecting everyone by 2018.

However, in looking at our own situation as a two physician couple (purely from the medical income standpoint), at first glance, it seems as though our taxes would actually go up. In addition, if it’s going up for us, it surely …

Drugs and prescribing

The other opioid epidemic that we ignore

Hans Duvefelt, MD

January 9, 2018Jan 9, 2018

“I made myself a hypodermic injection of a triple dose of morphia and sank down on the couch in my consulting room ... I told her I was all right, all I wanted was twenty-four hours’ sleep, she was not…

“I made myself a hypodermic injection of a triple dose of morphia and sank down on the couch in my consulting room … I told her I was all right, all I wanted was twenty-four hours’ sleep, she was not to disturb me unless the house was on fire.”
– Axel Munthe, MD, The Story of San Michele (1929)

When people in this country mention the opioid epidemic, most of the time it is …

Physician voices

Ignoring your mental health is risky business

Greg Smith, MD

January 9, 2018Jan 9, 20182

My car has one hundred seventeen thousand miles on it after just three and a half years. It has taken me back and forth from here to Atlanta more times than I can remember, to the beach, to the mountains I love to hike, and across the country in a seven thousand mile trip four falls ago. It runs well, just like new as a matter of fact. I have …

Physician voices

5 tips to better communicate with your patients

Suneel Dhand, MD

January 9, 2018Jan 9, 2018

Communication is the cornerstone of good health care. Despite all the external challenges we face with the system in which we work, those few minutes we spend with patients and their families are precious — and are what we will be remembered for. We, therefore, owe it to our patients to be at our very best and to make them the absolute center of …

Physician voices

A physician lurked on Facebook mom groups. Here’s what she found.

Audrey Nath, MD, PhD

January 9, 2018Jan 9, 201823

In my off time, as a mom and a physician, I spend a decent amount of time lurking in a rather strange environment, even for the internet. A place so filled with anxiety, stories of ill-chosen spouses and little glimpses of unbridled joy, that you’d think you were somehow inside a taping of the Real Housewives of This-crying-baby-makes-me-hope-that-I-end-up-having-a-dissociative-fugue. You know, *that* place.

Online mommy groups on Facebook.

And, there I am, lurking …

January 2018

Real physician voices, twice a week

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