Social media told her to abort her Turner syndrome baby

Conditions and Diseases
May 22, 2026

Two of my recent teaching topics with medical students have been people taking medical advice from social media and the rise of “wild births,” where babies receive no medical care whatsoever. Then I opened one of my Facebook moms’ groups and saw a pregnant woman post that her baby’s genetic screening came back positive for Turner syndrome. Immediately, strangers in the comments started telling her to abort. Not physicians. Not …

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Social media told her to abort her Turner syndrome baby

Prior authorization delays vital transplant medication

Conditions and Diseases
May 22, 2026

I am a heart transplant recipient. I understand the responsibility that comes with the organ I was given. I take my medications exactly as prescribed. I go to my appointments. I monitor for anything that could signal a problem. I do everything I am supposed to do. And I still almost ran out of my transplant medication.

What I was not prepared for was having to fight to get the medication …

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Prior authorization delays vital transplant medication

Telemedicine as a career, not a side gig

Physician
May 21, 2026

We were on a call recently with a physician who told us, almost in passing, that she’d been seeing patients on a telemedicine platform for four years. She said it the way you’d mention a hobby. Then she added, before we could say anything, that of course it was just a side gig.

She’d been doing it for four years. It was her practice.

We’ve had some version of that conversation hundreds …

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Telemedicine as a career, not a side gig

DOT ruling protects peanut allergies but not eggs, sesame, or milk [PODCAST]

Podcast
May 21, 2026
YouTube video

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A federal agency recognized food allergy as a disability, then limited boarding protection to one allergen category. Lianne Mandelbaum, a leading advocate for airline safety measures to protect food-allergic passengers, returns to explain …

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DOT ruling protects peanut allergies but not eggs, sesame, or milk [PODCAST]

How a medical investigation drives physician burnout

Physician
May 21, 2026

A physician receives the letter. It is short, formal, and absolute. A complaint has been filed. An investigation is underway. In that moment, something shifts. Not just professionally, but personally. The identity built over years of training, sacrifice, and responsibility suddenly feels fragile. Every decision, every note, every outcome is now seen through a different lens. What follows is rarely discussed. Not in training. Not in hospital corridors. Not even …

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How a medical investigation drives physician burnout

How Medicare reimbursement hurts independent physicians

Health Policy
May 21, 2026

Independent physicians, particularly in rural communities, have spent years navigating a steady stream of financial cuts, rising costs, and policy instability. Over time, these pressures have forced difficult decisions: scaling back services, reducing staff, and in too many cases, closing care centers altogether.

While there has been modest, temporary relief through adjustments in the Physician Fee Schedule (PFS), it has not been enough to reverse the broader trend. Many practices remain …

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How Medicare reimbursement hurts independent physicians

Medicare physician pay has fallen 33 percent since 2001

Health Policy
May 21, 2026

Patient care is getting squeezed. For years now, the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule has failed to give doctors the resources they need to keep up with rising costs and deliver high-quality care. The result is real strain on practices, especially smaller and independent ones, and growing risks for patients who rely on Medicare.

When you adjust for inflation, Medicare payment rates to physicians have dropped by about 33 percent …

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Medicare physician pay has fallen 33 percent since 2001

LinkedIn for physicians is not optional in 2026

Social Media in Medicine
May 21, 2026

A physician without LinkedIn in 2026 is making a business mistake, a reputation mistake, and a public health mistake.

This is no longer about keeping up with social media. It is about controlling your professional identity in a world where search results, AI summaries, recruiters, hospital leaders, journalists, patients, and even opponents look you up before they call you. LinkedIn reports more than 1.3 billion members worldwide. That makes it one …

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LinkedIn for physicians is not optional in 2026

How physician burnout impacts modern health care

Physician
May 21, 2026

My daughter had been home sick for three days. Not the kind of sick that keeps you in bed, but the kind that lingers just enough to keep you home, well enough to be bored. She was restless, observant, and thinking. She is 10.

Her dad stayed home with her the first day. I took the second. By the third day, I went back to work. I arranged my schedule so …

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How physician burnout impacts modern health care

Precision psychiatry is finally catching up to medicine

Conditions and Diseases
May 21, 2026

One of the hardest parts of practicing psychiatry is that we still cannot reliably predict which medication will work for which patient.

A patient comes in struggling with depression. We choose a medication based on symptoms, history, side effect profile, family history, clinical experience, and sometimes educated guesswork. Then we wait. Sometimes the medication helps quickly. Sometimes it causes side effects. Sometimes nothing happens at all. Then we adjust, augment, switch, …

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Precision psychiatry is finally catching up to medicine

How psychological safety reduces clinician burnout

Physician
May 21, 2026

Burnout among nurses and clinicians has been a prominent topic over the past decade. The combination of regulatory requirements, higher patient demands, and leaner budgets in the shadow of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has fueled the embers that have allowed this crisis of clinician burnout to smolder.

Simultaneously, health care systems are striving to deliver better clinical results in a world where transparency in data and public reporting is the expectation. …

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How psychological safety reduces clinician burnout

Physicians belong in health care venture capital

Physician Finance
May 21, 2026

I graduated residency with over 100 peer-reviewed publications, an EB-1A visa for extraordinary ability in medicine, and zero understanding of how health care capital works.

Nobody taught me what a term sheet was. Nobody explained how venture capital flowed into the companies building the devices, drugs, and software I used on patients every day. Nobody mentioned that the same analytical rigor I applied to systematic reviews, defining a question, evaluating evidence, …

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Physicians belong in health care venture capital

15 financial advisor questions for medical professionals

Physician Finance
May 21, 2026

Before treating a patient, you review their history, run diagnostics, and verify every detail. Have you done the same before trusting your financial advisor with your wealth?

Most medical professionals do not know if their advisor is truly acting in their best interest, or what they are really paying in fees, conflicts of interest, and hidden incentives.

I spent years working with financial advisors managing $20 million to more than $3 billion …

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15 financial advisor questions for medical professionals

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2 a.m. is a biological stress test no one talks about [PODCAST]

Podcast
May 20, 2026
YouTube video

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

What happens to your body and clinical judgment when you’re managing a code blue at the exact hour your biology demands deep sleep? Chinyelu E. Oraedu is an academic hospitalist and nocturnist with …

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2 a.m. is a biological stress test no one talks about [PODCAST]

How medical residents build patient trust today

Conditions and Diseases
May 20, 2026

Spend enough time in a hospital, and patterns start to emerge. Not the clinical kind, the human kind. During my daughter’s recent hospitalization, residents rotated in and out every 12 hours. Over time, I found myself paying attention in a different way. Not with the intent to evaluate, but with a kind of quiet curiosity about how different people showed up in the same role, under the same conditions. It …

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How medical residents build patient trust today

How to improve protein absorption after gastric bypass

Conditions and Diseases
May 20, 2026

I have spent over two decades treating bariatric patients, and one of the most frustrating clinical situations I encounter is this: A patient sitting across from me who has done everything right. They are hitting 75 grams of protein a day. They are tracking every gram. They are bringing their food logs to every appointment. And they are still losing hair, losing muscle, and showing up with low labs.

In my …

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How to improve protein absorption after gastric bypass

How civic engagement empowers health care workers

Physician
May 20, 2026

For much of my career, I understood my responsibility in familiar terms: care for the patient in front of me, advocate for better health systems, and teach the next generation of trainees. I still believe that. But I now believe something else just as strongly: If we are serious about health, we cannot stop at the clinic door. We also have to show up in civic life and in the …

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How civic engagement empowers health care workers

Why physicians miss business owner stress in patients

Physician
May 20, 2026

The ECG was normal. The troponin was negative. The stress test was reassuring. Yet the patient in front of you looked as if he had been living under siege for months.

He was not sleeping. His blood pressure had worsened, despite medication adherence. He described chest tightness, reflux, headaches, irritability, and difficulty concentrating. He woke most nights around 3 a.m., his heart beating fast, checking an account balance, and then lay …

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Why physicians miss business owner stress in patients

Artificial intelligence disrupts health care delivery

Health Technology
May 20, 2026

About half of the primary care visits I see these days involve patients that have consulted ChatGPT and have “an answer” to their medical symptoms that I need to debate, but that is just the beginning of what is coming to engulf all of health care in the near future. Working part-time for an Amazon One Medical clinic in Silicon Valley, I am seeing the rollout of artificial intelligence (AI) …

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Artificial intelligence disrupts health care delivery

Why your physician guilt may not actually be yours

Physician
May 20, 2026

I was doing the dishes recently when I was hit with a stomach-dropping sensation and an unprompted memory. A negotiation I’d had years ago with my department. I had secured fair compensation for work they needed done, using the leverage I had. I walked away feeling good about it. And yet, standing at the sink with my guard down, years later, I felt a flash of guilt so unexpected it …

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Why your physician guilt may not actually be yours

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