How one man’s dying wish was denied by the health care system

Physician
August 5, 2025

“This is Dr. Mohr.” I answered a number I didn’t recognize.

“It’s Irving,” said the frantic voice. “He collapsed. The paramedics are working on him now.”

“They’re doing compressions? Stop! Put the paramedic on the phone!”

My father-in-law, Irving, the stoic Danish-American Navy veteran, had been on hospice for 3 months. His POST (physician order for life sustaining treatment) form was on file with the hospice agency and his custodial care facility: DNR/DNI, …

Read more…

How showing up teaches children about grief and empathy

Physician
August 5, 2025

My children’s Montessori teacher lost her son to suicide several years ago. When I heard of her son’s death, memories came flooding back. I recalled Tom’s upper school project in which he presented a hoverboard. This inspired much reverence and awe in my son, who later attempted the same. Tom’s mother had tended to my daughter’s bumps and scrapes on the playground and helped her learn phonics. I gathered the …

Read more…

When conscience compels doctors to walk out

Physician
August 5, 2025

There is a kind of silence in hospitals that no overhead page can interrupt. The silence after you have raised a concern, documented it, escalated, and nothing changes. Some physicians endure that silence for years. Some burn out. A few walk out, not in defiance of medicine, but in fidelity to what medicine was supposed to be. And when they do, we often call them disruptive, political, or unprofessional. But …

Read more…

Physician hiring bias in one of America’s most progressive cities

Physician
August 5, 2025

I have been fortunate to practice in several areas of medicine in my career. This has led me to triple board certification in family medicine, palliative medicine, and addiction medicine. I speak Spanish fluently, have a spotless record, and have dedicated my career to caring for underserved patients.

Despite this, after years of applying to prestigious health systems in a major city, I’ve never once been contacted for an interview in …

Read more…

Fatty liver disease in young adults [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 4, 2025
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Gastroenterologist Anuj Vikrant Sharma discusses his article, “Fatty liver disease is no longer reserved for older adults.” He warns of a quiet epidemic of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), a serious liver condition …

Read more…

Why GenAI pilots fail in health care—and how to fix it

Tech
August 4, 2025

Building health care AI pilots is easy; getting them to succeed at scale is a challenge.

According to a recent report from Bessemer Venture Partners, AWS, and Bain & Company, only 30 percent of GenAI health care pilots reach production, where an even smaller number will go on to be successful.

This is partly because many health care organizations are in “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” mode …

Read more…

Confessions of a lipidologist in recovery: the infection we’ve ignored for 40 years

Conditions
August 4, 2025

The end of my belief came on a fall night in 2011. I was driving to a suburban restaurant to give a paid dinner talk on Niaspan for Abbott Labs. It was a typical night for a physician speaker—slide deck polished, HDL-cholesterol optimism intact. Then the results of the AIM-HIGH trial came over public radio. Niacin, when added to a statin, had no cardiovascular benefit. My world cracked. I never …

Read more…

How hospitals use salary caps to suppress physician wages [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 3, 2025
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Health law attorney Dennis Hursh discusses his article, “Why hospitals are quietly capping top doctors’ pay.” For nearly 40 years, he has reviewed physician employment agreements and reveals a shocking recent trend: …

Read more…

How a heart transplant turned one woman into a national transplant advocate

Conditions
August 3, 2025

My name is Ava Kaufman, and my doctors didn’t think I would be alive today. I defied the odds after being listed for – and receiving – an experimental heart transplant.

Before my transplant, I was a healthy mother and businesswoman who loved to dance. I randomly noticed a rash appearing on my hands and shins, so I went to the dermatologist. They told me that I had psoriasis, but it …

Read more…

Innovation is moving too fast for health care workers to catch up

Policy
August 3, 2025

I recently spoke with close friends—both physicians—who admitted something quietly alarming: They’re not resisting change in health care. They’re just tired of constantly adapting while losing the essence of what brought them into medicine in the first place.

“I spend more time documenting than actually caring for my patients.”

“Every time I adjust to one system, a new one replaces it.”

These comments stayed with me—not as complaints, but as confessions. As a …

Read more…

Physician burnout: a crisis of conscience, calling, and collective responsibility

Physician
August 3, 2025

Introduction

The medical profession is grappling with a crisis of profound proportions. Burnout now affects nearly half of all practicing physicians. This is not merely dissatisfaction—it is emotional and moral exhaustion that undermines both physician wellbeing and patient safety. At its core, burnout signals a loss of connection to purpose, to colleagues, and to the healing relationship that defines medical practice.

Burnout manifests as emotional depletion, depersonalization of patients, and a diminished …

Read more…

How inspiration shapes the stories of our lives [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 2, 2025
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Adjunct professor of psychiatry Arthur Lazarus discusses his article, “How inspiration and family stories shape our most meaningful moments,” which presents a moving fictional story excerpted from his book. The narrative centers …

Read more…

When the pediatrician is the parent: a personal reckoning with childhood obesity

Conditions
August 2, 2025

I would never have thought I would be the one writing this piece.

I am a board-certified pediatrician and internist with a background in nutrition, well-versed in integrative medicine. Our family eats its fair share of kale, blueberries, and salmon. We hardly ever have a significant supply of junk food in the house. Fast food is a rarity, and she never even tasted juice in toddlerhood. And still, my child’s BMI …

Read more…

ADVERTISEMENT

How listening makes you a better doctor before your first prescription

Education
August 2, 2025

Before I ever introduced myself as a future doctor, I was a listener.

Not because someone told me that listening was important in medicine, but because, as a first-year student, I quickly realized I had no answers—but I did have ears. And heart. And a quiet seat at the edge of patient stories and preceptor reflections.

In the early days of medical school, everything felt unfamiliar. The terms, the pace, the sense …

Read more…

I knew choosing DPC would exacerbate primary care physician shortages, and I chose it anyway. Here’s why.

Physician
August 2, 2025

When I made the decision to leave the traditional, insurance-based system and start a direct primary care (DPC) practice, I didn’t do so under any illusions. I knew what the critics would say. In fact, I’d already heard it.

  • You’re making it harder for patients to find a primary care doctor.
  • You’re reducing access for the underserved.
  • You’re selling out.

I’ve read the blog posts, like the one recently published on …

Read more…

It’s OK to want a different life in medicine [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 1, 2025
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Pediatrician and certified coach Jessie Mahoney discusses her article, “From burnout to balance: a neurosurgeon’s bold career redesign.” She shares the powerful story of a female neurosurgeon who, on the verge of …

Read more…

Why treating obesity like a medical condition saves lives

Conditions
August 1, 2025

Cardiovascular disease continues to be the #1 killer of Americans, both men and women.

Obesity and being overweight increase the risk of cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, but beyond these are independent risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease.

Unlike hypertension, which has been called the “silent killer” as its presence is too often unknown to people who have high blood pressure, Americans are rarely unaware …

Read more…

From errors to resilience: a smarter approach to patient safety

Physician
August 1, 2025

Historically, health care has approached safety with a Safety-I lens, emphasizing the prevention of errors and investigating failures. While this method remains significant, contemporary health care’s complex, dynamic, and interdependent nature necessitates proactive and adaptive safety strategies. The emerging Safety-II and Safety-III frameworks provide novel perspectives on safety by prioritizing resilience, real-time adaptation, and learning from success, rather than from failure.

Safety-II shifts the focus from what goes wrong …

Read more…

The unseen emotional toll of being a physician

Conditions
August 1, 2025

Many of the physicians who come to my therapy practice share a quiet, painful fear. They’re already excellent clinicians. They know the medicine, stay up to date on the literature, and often find deep meaning in their work. But they’re worn down by the emotional toll of sitting with suffering day after day. They start to wonder: Why is this hitting me so hard when everyone else seems fine? Am …

Read more…

The most overlooked revenue strategy in primary care: trust

Physician
August 1, 2025

We’re often told that the key to financial success in medicine is volume—more patients, more visits, more hustle. But after two decades in primary care, I’ve learned something different:
The most powerful asset in your practice isn’t speed. It’s trust.

And trust starts with one of the most human (and most overlooked) elements of medicine: the doctor-patient relationship.

Why relationships matter more than ever

Primary care isn’t just about diagnoses or prescriptions. It’s about …

Read more…

567
pages