| KevinMD.com

October 21, 2016Oct 21, 2016

Perhaps, doctors struggle more than most with memories that mark sad moments in their careers. For me, one of the most indelible was of a wonderful young man with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). When I started my oncology career in…

Perhaps, doctors struggle more than most with memories that mark sad moments in their careers. For me, one of the most indelible was of a wonderful young man with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML).

When I started my oncology career in the early 1970s, CML was almost always fatal. It would start with a chronic phase, which was treated with pretty simple medications. But those medications didn’t cure the disease.

The “almost always” …

Medical Education

Stop the competition in medical school

Anonymous

October 21, 2016Oct 21, 2016

Medical school attracts very similar kind of people. Most of us are high-achieving, intelligent people with the common goal of helping others. It is beautiful to think of all of the potential patients we could serve working together. Applying to…

Somewhere in between all of the courses one must take to enter medical school and the dreadful MCAT, it becomes a number …

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Stop the competition in medical school

Physician

Don’t assume that you know what a doctor looks like

Nisha Mehta, MD

October 20, 2016Oct 20, 2016

Recently, an African American female physician was prevented from providing help to a passenger in distress on a Delta airlines flight because she didn’t fit the flight attendant’s image of what a doctor looked like. The racial and gender issues…

The racial and gender issues that this event highlight are readily apparent. As a South Asian, I have to say I’ve never been told I don’t look like a doctor on a racial basis. If anything, …

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Physician

Dr. Google isn’t all bad: Patient engagement might help outcomes

Yul Ejnes, MD

October 20, 2016Oct 20, 2016

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. It made the rounds on social media this winter: a photo of a coffee mug with the words “Please Do Not Confuse Your Google Search With My Medical…

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

It made the rounds on social media this winter: a photo of a coffee mug with the words “Please Do Not Confuse Your Google Search With My Medical Degree.” Colleagues shared and retweeted it, feeling a sense of vindication. I have to admit that …

Health Policy

Did Obama break the law to save the Affordable Care Act?

Kevin R. Campbell, MD

October 20, 2016Oct 20, 2016

Recently, a federal audit found that the Obama administration has illegally redirected funds related to collections from the Affordable Care Act that, by law, should have been deposited in the U.S. Treasury. President Obama, under the guise of executive order, used these tax dollars to bail out insurance companies that have experienced hundreds of millions of dollars in losses due to their participation the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges.

In their …

Physician

When physicians can’t hide the emotion

Andrew Martin, MD

October 20, 2016Oct 20, 2016

You have to create a disconnect from death. Not indifference, in fact, it’s your duty to combat it. But as an emergency medicine physician, you lose that battle often. I encounter death on a near daily basis as a resident in the emergency department, and despite all my years of training, there’s often nothing I or anyone can do to prevent it. Health care workers in such an environment often …

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When physicians can’t hide the emotion

Physician

Growing up in a medical family: The good and the bad

Mary Gebara

October 20, 2016Oct 20, 2016

Modern families are an ever-changing nucleus of the pursuit of happiness, well-being, success and security. Medical families are no exception to that; in fact, I believe they are deeply centered on such values and aspirations. While some might believe that…

Growing up is a tough job, regardless of who your parents …

Physician

The kind of person who makes this country great

David Mokotoff, MD

October 20, 2016Oct 20, 2016

It is hard, perhaps impossible, to take the measure of a man in thirty minutes. However, there is still much that can be learned. After enjoying an evening meal in Tampa with friends to celebrate my birthday, my wife and I summoned a Lyft to get home. The ride would be about a half an hour. As is characteristic of the new ride share companies, notably Uber and Lyft, I …

Physician

How a hurricane brought a hospital team closer together

Danielle Scheurer, MD

October 19, 2016Oct 19, 2016

It turns out that South Carolina is having a busy hurricane season. Recently, Charleston County was under a mandatory evacuation in anticipation of Hurricane Matthew. All I-26 lanes were converted into westbound traffic, gas stations were running low on fuel, and the local Wal-Mart was out of bottled water. It was T-minus 3 days to the landfall of Hurricane Matthew, with very variable predictions on the trajectory, speed, and strength. …

Physician

Bullying isn’t just for kids. Do you do it?

Edwin Leap, MD

October 19, 2016Oct 19, 2016

I well remember being bullied on the school bus. On many cold, wet mornings (a large portion of the year in West Virginia, by the way), I found my junior-high self sitting in front of high school juniors and seniors who turned their class rings upside down, then used them to hit lesser life forms on the top of the head in a whipping motion. Turning around in pain and …

Physician

Donald Trump triggers deep-seated human instincts

Anonymous

October 19, 2016Oct 19, 2016

My dad is a locally famed and sincere career politician. All my life I have seen him value public service over personal wealth. As a young lawyer, he worked in Washington DC for the Department of Justice during the civil rights movement, and he often shares stories of his tour of duty in 1960’s Alabama. After that service, he came back to West Virginia where he has been elected to …

Physician

How one patient’s end-of-life care can affect us all

James C. Salwitz, MD

October 19, 2016Oct 19, 2016

David was 42 when he died from stomach cancer. He spent the last year of his life receiving useless chemotherapy and debilitating radiation. David was in terrible pain all of the time. He stayed in bed for months as cancer…

Finally, David was rushed to a hospital, plugged into a breathing machine and pierced by countless IV drips. He died despite a battery of tests, …

Health Policy

This election is focusing on the wrong health issues

Miranda Yaver, PhD

October 19, 2016Oct 19, 2016

For all the media’s (and candidates’) attention to candidate health over the course of this presidential campaign, we seem to be spending precious little time in the presidential debates discussing the candidates’ actual health plans. Those on the left have…

Those on the left have “diagnosed” Mr. Trump as unhinged and mentally unstable, calling attention to a narcissistic personality consistent with a DSM diagnosis, though in violation of the “Goldwater Rule.” They have further raised the Read more…

This election is focusing on the wrong health issues

Patient

October should focus more on incurable breast cancer

Carol Chaoui

October 18, 2016Oct 18, 2016

Seven years ago, when I was first diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer, I approached it with a determination to win. As a competitive runner, that’s what I’ve always done. Cancer would be another uphill battle, with tough stretches as…

My oncologist encouraged me to keep running during all my treatments, telling me it would help on many levels. He and I knew it would …

Conditions and Diseases

Transplantation for alcoholic liver disease: 6-month rule or death sentence?

Robert S. Brown, Jr., MD, MPH

October 18, 2016Oct 18, 2016

Liver transplantation for alcoholic liver disease has been controversial since the advent of the procedure. The perception that alcohol-related liver disease is self-inflicted combined with concerns of a high risk of recidivism to alcohol use, recurrent alcoholic liver disease, and non-compliance post-transplant has led a lack of support for transplantation for alcoholic patients in the public and among physicians. After initially avoiding transplants in this group of patients, the majority …

Medications

Statins as primary prevention: Helpful or harmful?

Robert Centor, MD

October 18, 2016Oct 18, 2016

A friend asked me recently about statins. He takes a statin for primary prevention but is concerned that he has muscle pain and weakness as a side effect. So he posed the question: “How important is the statin?” The Washington…

The Washington Post had this recent article: “Who should take statins? A vicious debate over cholesterol drugs.”

But while nearly all experts agree that statins are beneficial for people at a …

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Statins as primary prevention: Helpful or harmful?

Physician

The final vestiges of life evaporating

Tobi Thaller, MD

October 18, 2016Oct 18, 2016

I stood at Jack’s bedside along with his wife and two friends as life support was withdrawn. He was 52 years old and had married his wife just seven months earlier. After years of living on the street, struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, he had managed to stay clean for almost a year. Then he experienced a heart attack, and his brain went without oxygen for at least 30 …

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The final vestiges of life evaporating

Physician

A dying patient stirs up personal memories for this doctor

Amanda Breviu, MD

October 18, 2016Oct 18, 2016

As physicians, we generally attempt to separate our personal lives from our work. Some of this comes from modeling behavior of others during training, some comes with further experiences in coping with the patients we encounter. I recently had the…

I recently had the pleasure of caring for an elderly gentleman who was brought into the hospital by his loving wife and son. He had Parkinson disease, as well as dementia, and his family reported …

Physician

Syncope at 35,000 feet: A physician’s harrowing story

Janelle Evans, MD, MS

October 18, 2016Oct 18, 2016

I am sharing this account of a serious medical emergency on a transoceanic flight because I hope it helps other health care providers assist people in the future and learn from the difficulties I encountered. About 8 1/2 hours into…

About 8 1/2 hours into a 17-hour flight, a gentleman had a syncopal episode in the exit row I was sitting in. His face was bleeding, and he was having issues controlling his bowels afterwards. His …

Physician

Children at the dentist’s office: Who’s watching them?

Karen S. Sibert, MD

October 17, 2016Oct 17, 2016

You may have read about the recent tragic deaths of two healthy children -- Marvelena Rady, age 3, and Caleb Sears, age 6 -- in California dental offices. Unfortunately, they aren’t the first children to die during dental procedures, and…

You may have read about the recent tragic deaths of two healthy children — Marvelena Rady, age 3, and Caleb Sears, age 6 — in California dental offices. Unfortunately, they aren’t the first children to die during dental procedures, and unless things change, they probably won’t be the last.

State Senator Jerry Hill has asked the Dental Board of California (DBC) to review California’s present laws and regulations …