Physician resilience: Why systems matter more than heroism

Health Technology
February 11, 2026

Medicine has always loved the story of the hero.

The physician who pushes through exhaustion. The one who catches the rare diagnosis at the last second. The colleague who seems to carry an impossible load without ever dropping the ball.

But after years of watching which physicians actually thrive, not just survive, I have come to believe we have been telling the wrong story.

The doctors who perform at the highest level over …

Read more…

Physician resilience: Why systems matter more than heroism

Medical bankruptcy: the hidden cost of U.S. health care

Conditions and Diseases
February 11, 2026

My wife underwent major surgery in December 2025. She remained 10 days in a Charlotte, NC, hospital and was then for several weeks supported at home by visiting nurses, a physical therapist, and a dietician. We just saw the bill: The hospital and participating doctors submitted bills of $120,000 to Medicare and to Tricare (family health insurance for military service veterans like me).

The 21 years that I served as a …

Read more…

Medical bankruptcy: the hidden cost of U.S. health care

Tobacco treatment neglect: Why 25 million smokers are left behind

Conditions and Diseases
February 11, 2026

If a new disease emerged and killed this many people, everyone would be talking about it. This death rate has been constant over the last decade, despite the declining prevalence of cigarette smoking. The decline in prevalence is, for the most part, due to reduced adoption of smoking by teenagers, and younger smokers have been shifting to vaping. The prevalence of smoking among older, poor, less well-educated, and rural populations …

Read more…

Tobacco treatment neglect: Why 25 million smokers are left behind

Music and brain plasticity: How sound rewires your mind

Conditions and Diseases
February 11, 2026

Hot off the presses. The latest science proves, yet again, that music benefits your brain, and not in some vague, feel-good way; it physically remodels your brain in ways that make you calmer, sharper, and happier. I’m talking about measurable rewiring, anxiety reduction, and cognitive gains you can actually see on an fMRI.

Three rock-solid studies just landed:

1. Chinese researchers and anxiety reduction

Chinese researchers took a bunch of stressed-out college students …

Read more…

Music and brain plasticity: How sound rewires your mind

Employer-sponsored DPC: Why private equity is winning the infrastructure race

Health Policy
February 11, 2026

More than a month after HSA-eligible direct primary care became available, independent practices remain unprepared for the operational complexity employer contracts require. The DPC community celebrated regulatory victory. Private equity prepared infrastructure.

That preparation became visible throughout 2025. Frontier Direct Care announced a $20 million Series B to expand its employer-sponsored DPC platform. Marathon Health, formed from the 2024 Everside merger, operates …

Read more…

Employer-sponsored DPC: Why private equity is winning the infrastructure race

Validating AI in health care: the role of real-world evidence

Health Technology
February 11, 2026

Before complex medical interventions ever reach patients, their effectiveness must be scientifically proven through rigorous testing in controlled settings such as laboratories and research facilities. But ensuring effectiveness doesn’t stop there. The process of assessing a medical treatment’s usefulness is multilayered and requires investigation that goes well beyond the laboratory. It must also assess how the treatment fares in day-to-day clinical practice for a wide variety of patients. Now, as …

Read more…

Validating AI in health care: the role of real-world evidence

Why Medicare must cover atrial fibrillation screening to prevent strokes

Conditions and Diseases
February 11, 2026

Evelyn felt fine that morning. At 68, she was active, healthy, and just returned from her daily walk when her heart began to flutter. It wasn’t painful, just an odd sensation, like a fish flopping in her chest. It lasted around 10 minutes and then stopped. Although she thought it was strange, she soon dismissed it. A week later, she woke up unable to move her right side. A stroke …

Read more…

Why Medicare must cover atrial fibrillation screening to prevent strokes

Teaching joy transforms the future of medical practice [PODCAST]

Podcast
February 10, 2026
YouTube video

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

Psychiatrist Sarah Hollander, clinical psychologist Kelly D. Holder, and physician advocate and physical therapist Kim Downey discuss their article “Joy in medicine: a new culture.” Sarah, Kelly, and Kim explore how the …

Read more…

Teaching joy transforms the future of medical practice [PODCAST]

Why Filipino nurses faced higher COVID-19 mortality rates

Health Policy
February 10, 2026

I was always taught to show respect to older relatives through the mano po gesture. If I were meeting a new family member, I would say “Ang pangalan ko Joaquim” to introduce myself. However, since immigrating to the United States from the Philippines, there are fewer and fewer people who call me by my actual name.

My family immigrated to the United States in 2002 after my mother accepted an opportunity …

Read more…

Why Filipino nurses faced higher COVID-19 mortality rates

Frailty and functional decline: Why diagnosis is not enough

Conditions and Diseases
February 10, 2026

As clinicians, we are trained to look for disease.

We measure blood pressure, blood sugar, lung function, and imaging results, often waiting for pathology to declare itself before we intervene. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, many of us noticed something unsettling: patients were not only arriving later, they were arriving weaker.

Recent evidence confirms this clinical intuition. An analysis published in The BMJ, examining health records from more than 30 million people, …

Read more…

Frailty and functional decline: Why diagnosis is not enough

Moral injury in medicine: When silence becomes a survival strategy

Physician
February 10, 2026

Egregious ethical failures in health care almost always gain attention. Less visible, but no less consequential, are the systemic ones that are often overlooked: routine acts that present themselves as morally neutral, procedural, and unremarkable. They usually do not provoke outrage and are not experienced as trauma. Yet over time, one must be concerned about how they quietly reshape our well-being and our professional identities.

The effect of these acts does …

Read more…

Moral injury in medicine: When silence becomes a survival strategy

Iterative mindset versus AI and GLP-1s: Why shortcuts weaken the brain

Health Technology
February 10, 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the biggest economic craze since cryptocurrencies, and GLP-1 agonists are the biggest health craze since statins. But are they as good for users as producers and Wall Street? Will they implode like their predecessors?

We spoke with behavior change expert Kyra Bobinet, MD, author of Unstoppable Brain: The New Neuroscience That Frees Us From Failure, Eases Our Stress, and Creates Lasting Change. She maintains that both …

Read more…

Iterative mindset versus AI and GLP-1s: Why shortcuts weaken the brain

Autism comorbidities: the hidden link between POTS, GI issues, and hypermobility

Conditions and Diseases
February 10, 2026

Autism is typically framed as a neurodevelopmental condition defined by differences in social communication, sensory processing, and behavior. This framing is incomplete. In clinical practice, autistic individuals frequently present with a striking burden of systemic symptoms involving the gastrointestinal tract, cardiovascular regulation, immune signaling, connective tissue, and stress physiology. These are not side notes. They reflect the fact that autism lives within a nervous system that innervates the entire body.

The …

Read more…

Autism comorbidities: the hidden link between POTS, GI issues, and hypermobility

ADVERTISEMENT

The impact of CDC’s new childhood immunization guidance

Conditions and Diseases
February 10, 2026

For most of my life, preventable infectious diseases existed at the margins of medicine. Influenza was seasonal but manageable. Hepatitis outbreaks were contained. Childhood hospitalizations from rotavirus or meningococcal disease were rare enough to be notable. COVID-19 may have shattered predictability, but even then, many of us believed the lessons we learned would be followed by renewed investment in prevention.

Instead, we now stand at a crossroads.

A crossroads in prevention

Recent guideline …

Read more…

The impact of CDC’s new childhood immunization guidance

Remote nursing for burnout: How changing environments saved my career

Conditions and Diseases
February 10, 2026

For most of my nursing career, my instinct when work felt overwhelming was always the same: Look inward, fix myself, and try harder.

If a shift felt chaotic, I assumed I needed to manage my time better. If an interaction went poorly, I replayed it in my mind, wondering what I could have said differently. If I came home exhausted and irritable, I told myself I needed thicker skin. I believed …

Read more…

Remote nursing for burnout: How changing environments saved my career

Doctors often struggle to separate professional advice from family love [PODCAST]

Podcast
February 9, 2026
YouTube video

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

Board-certified pediatrician, certified coach, and mindfulness and yoga teacher Jessie Mahoney discusses her article “Pediatrician vs. grandmother: Choosing love over medical advice.” Jessie explores the internal conflict she faced between her medical …

Read more…

Doctors often struggle to separate professional advice from family love [PODCAST]

Beyond weight loss: the expanding benefits of GLP-1 receptor agonists

Medications
February 9, 2026

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) were introduced to help manage type 2 diabetes. They improve glycemic control and promote weight loss, which we all know are essential for long-term outcomes. In practice, I’ve seen that their impact goes beyond these traditional targets. Patients often benefit from cardiovascular protection and kidney improvements, and emerging data show advantages in areas we did not initially anticipate, such as sleep apnea, joint health, …

Read more…

Beyond weight loss: the expanding benefits of GLP-1 receptor agonists

Medical misinformation: Navigating vaccine hesitancy with empathy

Physician
February 9, 2026

Medical misinformation is rampant but should not be overstated. Vaccination remains a good barometer of the range of opinions on a subject directly related to individual as well as population health. 82 percent of Americans received at least one shot of the COVID vaccine by December 2023. However, more recently, population vaccination rates of children are decreasing.

Perspectives on safety and immunity

The increasing distrust in vaccines may be …

Read more…

Medical misinformation: Navigating vaccine hesitancy with empathy

AI-assisted therapy: Why supervision makes the difference

Conditions and Diseases
February 9, 2026

Artificial intelligence in mental health has become an easy target. Headlines warn of hallucinating chatbots, reckless advice, and sensational claims that AI therapy is pushing vulnerable patients toward self-harm or suicide. The implication is clear: AI is dangerous, irresponsible, and incompatible with serious clinical care.

That conclusion is too simple and, in many cases, wrong.

The uncomfortable truth is that many patients are already receiving something far riskier than supervised AI therapy. …

Read more…

AI-assisted therapy: Why supervision makes the difference

When language becomes the barrier: IMGs and autism diagnoses

Conditions and Diseases
February 9, 2026

I once left grand rounds with a donut and a fake pager buzz because I couldn’t understand the speaker, who often was a natural Mandarin or Arabic speaker. Humor aside, this was not just my problem; it was a systemic failure.

I have spent decades in developmental-behavioral pediatrics, and one truth has never changed: Communication is the currency of medicine. Without it, trust collapses.

International medical graduates (IMGs) are vital to our …

Read more…

When language becomes the barrier: IMGs and autism diagnoses

1467
pages