| KevinMD.com

November 22, 2021Nov 22, 2021

"I left my primary care practice earlier this year to focus on life coaching. Why did I leave? Because I wanted to do more and make a bigger impact. I remember how eager I was to complete medical training as…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Listen and followApple Podcasts Spotify YouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

“I left my primary care practice earlier this year to focus on life coaching. Why did I leave? Because I wanted to do more and make a bigger impact. I remember how eager I was to complete medical training as I approached the light at the end of the …

Physician

What I learned about medicine in the House of Pain

Casey P. Schukow, DO

November 22, 2021Nov 22, 2021

Recently, I finished reading a book about Dr. D.S. “Doc” Ping titled The Legend of Doc Ping. Doc, a former United States Marine and Vietnam veteran, mentored me for a near-decade from my adolescence through early adulthood. As I was reading this book, I could not help but reflect on my time training with him, and the lessons I learned from “Ping’s Dojo,” especially as they pertain …

Health Policy

How to address the mental health fallout of climate change

Rishab Chawla

November 22, 2021Nov 22, 2021

An existential crisis On August 9, the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report made public what many had feared. Global temperature warming to 1.5 C is all but inevitable by 2040 — even by the most…

An existential crisis

On August 9, the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report made public what many had feared. Global temperature warming to 1.5 C is all but inevitable by 2040 — even by the most optimistic scenarios — unless radically drastic steps are taken to end the use of fossil fuels.

Severe weather events such as California wildfires and Atlantic hurricanes of the past …

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

Physician

What change are you resisting? What should you deliberately practice?

Erin Maslowski, MD

November 22, 2021Nov 22, 2021

My 13-year-old daughter inspired this article. If you parent a middle school volleyball player, you know that overhand serving is the holy grail of the game at that level. My daughter has a solid underhand serve that works well for her, but a consistent overhand serve would give her a big boost. To my consternation, she prefers to practice passing, i.e., bumping the ball back and forth. Why would she …

Podcast

Why economics is the best pre-med major [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 21, 2021Nov 21, 2021

"Economics taught me that I didn’t have to culture cells in a dish to do interesting and life-changing work. I built a habit of being inquisitive and intellectually curious about the world around me because I learned in undergrad that…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Listen and followApple Podcasts Spotify YouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

“Economics taught me that I didn’t have to culture cells in a dish to do interesting and life-changing work. I built a habit of being inquisitive and intellectually curious about the world around me because I learned in undergrad that our human, flawed world contains elegant experiments, puzzling oddities, and …

Conditions and Diseases

A children’s guide to getting vaccinated, in comic form

Emily Watters, MD

November 21, 2021Nov 21, 2021

Emily Watters is a physician and created a children's guide to getting vaccinated, in comic form. (Click to enlarge.) Emily Watters is a psychiatrist and can be reached at The Cartoon Shrink. Dr. Watters is a volunteer associate clinical professor…

Emily Watters is a physician and created a children’s guide to getting vaccinated, in comic form. (Click to enlarge.)

We must help physicians at the brink of burnout, depression, and high stress

Ricardo Chujutalli, MD, MBA, and Adrian Agudelo, MD

November 21, 2021Nov 21, 2021

One patient down. Nine more to go. My attending politely closed the door behind him and walked back to his computer to chart his patient. His pen crossed off a line from the list that he pulled from his pocket.…

One patient down. Nine more to go.

My attending politely closed the door behind him and walked back to his computer to chart his patient. His pen crossed off a line from the list that he pulled from his pocket. His schedule was listed in 15-minute intervals.

As we got to the workroom, he sat down, and under his breath, I heard him sigh. It was barely ten o’clock in the morning. …

Physician

It’s not an easy thing to unlearn how to save a life

Roxanne Almas, MD, MSPH

November 21, 2021Nov 21, 2021

For the last couple of decades, I was trained to save lives. I sat shoulder to shoulder with others who drilled this in me when I was green, sometimes even through humiliation. I learned to perceptively read patient cues, develop quick reflexes, and think on the spot in critical moments, wherever and whenever life was compromised. I always threw lifebuoys into the ocean when I was called into action. This …

Podcast

Medical gaslighting due to weight stigma and bias: a viral TikTok study [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 20, 2021Nov 20, 2021

"Disrupting weight stigma and bias in health care starts with calling it out. The power of stories and shared experiences highlights the collective voice. I’m coaching TikTok Followers to own their health power and start speaking up during clinic visits…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Listen and followApple Podcasts Spotify YouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

“Disrupting weight stigma and bias in health care starts with calling it out. The power of stories and shared experiences highlights the collective voice. I’m coaching TikTok Followers to own their health power and start speaking up during clinic visits to make sure they get their questions answered. Future …

Health Policy

Open enrollment: It’s time to leave your insurance plan behind

Andy Schoonover

November 20, 2021Nov 20, 2021

Research shows inadequate health insurance accounts for nearly 67 percent of all bankruptcies. This statistic is staggering, and illustrates a difficult reality for the many American families navigating today's insurance market. Not only can medical debt become a heavy burden…

Not only can medical debt become a heavy burden – it can impact every facet of an individual’s life; compromising financial stability and potentially even exacerbating underlying medical conditions, creating complications due to the stress it causes. …

Physician

A physician’s rant. Written but not sent.

Anonymous

November 20, 2021Nov 20, 2021

Once again, at 1 a.m., I was knee-deep in patient charts and the cacophony of messages that our "user-friendly" EHR employs to allow various staff members to reach us. One of these was about a simple, inexpensive radiologic test I…

Once again, at 1 a.m., I was knee-deep in patient charts and the cacophony of messages that our “user-friendly” EHR employs to allow various staff members to reach us. One of these was about a simple, inexpensive radiologic test I had ordered which the insurance company denied for my patient. Not surprisingly, I was exhausted, and I lost it.

With some minor edits, I wrote the following in response to this …

Physician

An open letter to radiologists from a jilted orthopedic surgeon

Samara Friedman, MD

November 20, 2021Nov 20, 2021

This article is satire. As an orthopedic surgeon, it has always been clear that our specialties benefit from a somewhat symbiotic relationship. We feed you patients, and you often return the favor by providing us with the needed confirmation to…

This article is satire.

As an orthopedic surgeon, it has always been clear that our specialties benefit from a somewhat symbiotic relationship. We feed you patients, and you often return the favor by providing us with the needed confirmation to operate. However, I feel as though there is a deepening rift between our two specialties. It has been developing gradually, almost imperceptibly, over time. Perhaps it is perpetuated by the belief …

Physician

How to preserve empathy in medicine [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 19, 2021Nov 19, 2021

"No matter how extensive or well-developed your capacity for empathy may be, you cannot feel empathy for everyone all the time. Whether we’re talking about doctors who have never been patients, or clinicians who have never faced discrimination, we know…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Listen and followApple Podcasts Spotify YouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

“No matter how extensive or well-developed your capacity for empathy may be, you cannot feel empathy for everyone all the time. Whether we’re talking about doctors who have never been patients, or clinicians who have never faced discrimination, we know that people’s ideas can change, when properly educated and …

Conditions and Diseases

It’s a lifestyle: Adopting a behavioral approach to health care is urgent

Elizabeth Simkus, DNP, FNP-C

November 19, 2021Nov 19, 2021

If you are a frequent flyer in an airlines program, this is often a benefit. If you are a “frequent flyer” in a health care setting, this is not. It means you may have a chronic illness and are often seen in a health care setting, treated, sent home, and quickly return because the care approach was not to prevent recurrence by implementing lifestyle changes.

This is why lifestyle medicine is …

Physician

A dark corner of Reddit shines light on how misinformation kills

Geeta Nayyar, MD, MBA

November 19, 2021Nov 19, 2021

I’ve been struggling to find the right way to highlight how relentlessly misinformation is killing us. I could say that another World War II would only be 60 percent as deadly for Americans as this misinformation-fueled pandemic. I could say that if the deceased victims of COVID-19 were their own state, they’d have a larger population than Wyoming, Vermont, or Alaska.

But these examples fall short in two important ways.

First, they …

Conditions and Diseases

A nurse’s prayer for safety

Debbie Moore-Black, RN

November 19, 2021Nov 19, 2021

In Catholic elementary school, we sat at our school desks, and the nuns had us pray for the lost souls in purgatory every day. If we prayed hard enough, we would pray them out of purgatory and lift them into…

In Catholic elementary school, we sat at our school desks, and the nuns had us pray for the lost souls in purgatory every day.

If we prayed hard enough, we would pray them out of purgatory and lift them into heaven.

Before I clock in, I say my anti-assault prayers to the gods. I pray for safety. I pray for the next 12 hours to be uneventful.

I thought I would give ICU …

Read more…

A nurse’s prayer for safety

Podcast

How can technology innovation save primary care? [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

November 18, 2021Nov 18, 2021

"I believe there is a formula that can reduce the risk of burnout and save primary care, rooted in one key objective: Remove work from primary care doctors and nursing staff’s plates immediately. Easier said than done. And that’s where…

Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify

Listen and followApple Podcasts Spotify YouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes

“I believe there is a formula that can reduce the risk of burnout and save primary care, rooted in one key objective: Remove work from primary care doctors and nursing staff’s plates immediately.

Easier said than done. And that’s where technology and clinical navigation must be leveraged — to assist, facilitate, …

Personalized, precise, and data-driven: Precision Medical Education is here

Kelly Dore, PhD and Brian Clare

November 18, 2021Nov 18, 2021

This article is sponsored by Altus Assessments, data insights for health care education. As diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives in medical education work towards improving the heterogeneity of learners, the weaknesses of an educational system with uniform instruction will…

This article is sponsored by Altus Assessments, data insights for health care education.

As diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives in medical education work towards improving the heterogeneity of learners, the weaknesses of an educational system with uniform instruction will become more apparent. Uniform instruction does not take into account the complex mechanisms underlying each individual’s learning goals or …

Physician

Free association on lessons learned as a new attending psychiatrist

Garrett Rossi, MD

November 18, 2021Nov 18, 2021

There are several major transitions in a person’s medical career. The first occurs when you leave behind undergraduate life for medical school. The first term as a medical student will test your resiliency and confirm whether you are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to be a physician. The next transition occurs as you leave the academic portion of medical training and enter clinical rotations. This process culminates with the …

Conditions and Diseases

A message from a physician treating COVID patients

Bernard Leo Remakus, MD

November 18, 2021Nov 18, 2021

Most of the people who debate COVID-19 vaccination are not physicians. Of those who are, not all have treated COVID-19 patients. I have. As soon as COVID-19 vaccines became available, my entire practice was vaccinated. One elderly patient was not…

Most of the people who debate COVID-19 vaccination are not physicians. Of those who are, not all have treated COVID-19 patients. I have.

As soon as COVID-19 vaccines became available, my entire practice was vaccinated. One elderly patient was not because he was hospitalized in another state. He acquired COVID-19 there and died.

With the availability of testing and treatment, I have routinely tested patients who were symptomatic or exposed to the …