Conditions

From nurse practitioner to quality improvement leader in sleep medicine

Conditions
August 6, 2025

I am a doctor of nursing practice and board-certified nurse practitioner with over a decade of experience in internal medicine, pulmonology, and sleep medicine. My career has taken shape in the diverse and fast-paced outpatient care settings of New York, where I’ve had the opportunity to serve patients from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Many of the individuals I care for face chronic respiratory illnesses, comorbid conditions, and significant …

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Stop telling burned-out doctors to be more resilient

Conditions
August 6, 2025

Doctors are often praised for their resilience. It’s become a buzzword in medicine, touted as some catch-all antidote to physician burnout. It’s used in keynotes, wellness programs, recruitment ads, hospital HR emails—everywhere really. “Feeling burned out? Improve your resilience.” But I believe that this emphasis on resilience often misses the mark. Worse, it can subtly reinforce the idea that if you’re suffering, you’re not resilient enough.

But what if the problem …

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A mindset shift for physicians: Retrain your brain to see what’s going well

Conditions
August 6, 2025

As a physician, you’re trained to spot problems. You scan for risks, anticipate complications, and stay alert for what could go wrong. That mindset helps keep patients safe. However, over time, it can become automatic, even outside of work.

When your attention is always tuned to what’s missing or what might fail, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s going well. One physician I coached was deeply committed to his patients …

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Don’t ignore hematuria: When to worry about blood in your urine

Conditions
August 5, 2025

It happens more often than people talk about: You go to the bathroom, and suddenly you notice red or brownish urine in the toilet bowl. Your heart skips a beat. Is it something you ate? Could it be serious? Should you wait or call your doctor?

If you ever see blood in your urine, don’t panic, but don’t ignore it either. That red color, whether it’s faint pink or dark like …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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The hidden battle of weight loss: Why dieting alone isn’t enough

Conditions
July 31, 2025

Among Americans and Europeans, overweight and obesity are endemic. Excess weight is also a primary or contributing cause and a significant risk factor for many chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, several cancers, liver and kidney diseases, respiratory and musculoskeletal disorders, and mental health problems.

That being said, one can read any amount of advice we can make time for, concerning dieting or exercise. But a harsh reality persists: Fat …

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Affordable postpartum hemorrhage solutions every OB/GYN should know

Conditions
July 29, 2025

Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) remains one of the most common causes of maternal death globally. In many cases, it’s not a matter of lacking knowledge—it’s about lacking access to the tools we need.

In well-resourced U.S. hospitals, the JADA® System has in many ways been a paradigm change by using vacuum-induced uterine tamponade—a technique that creates gentle intrauterine suction to trigger uterine contraction and bleeding control. However, for the vast majority of …

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How are prostate exams done and why you shouldn’t avoid them

Conditions
July 29, 2025

Men don’t usually bring up prostate exams in casual conversation, and that silence is part of the problem.

Across clinics and exam rooms, we see it all the time: men who delay checkups until urinary symptoms become disruptive, or worse, when routine blood work turns into a cause for concern. The truth is, prostate screening isn’t about embarrassment or fear, it’s about staying one step ahead of issues that are common, …

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Airlines’ policy ignores your do not resuscitate (DNR): Discover why and some ways to protect yourself

Conditions
July 29, 2025

“It is a sad state that fear of liability will oftentimes negate the moral choice made by a terminally ill patient.”
– Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Background

In August 2024, I gave a presentation, “You’re suing me because I kept your mom alive? Avoiding wrongful life lawsuits.” I discussed the consequences for medical staff when they disregard a valid DNR and revive a person, against their wishes. There are numerous nationwide …

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How coaching transforms care for people with multiple sclerosis

Conditions
July 28, 2025

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune-mediated neurodegenerative disease that affects approximately 2.8 million people worldwide, and its incidence has risen over the past decade. As health and wellness professionals who have cared for people living with MS, we have both witnessed the ever-evolving journey and the roller coaster of emotions, psychosocial impact, symptoms, and health challenges that people living with MS face. The muscle weakness that makes walking more …

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Integrating vitamin education in mental health care

Conditions
July 27, 2025

For a long time, I was close-minded to the idea of vitamin supplementation as a meaningful part of mental health treatment. Like many in medicine, I saw it as misguided at best and more a part of wellness culture than real science. However, over time, I realized how often we mistake “That makes sense to me” for “That’s objectively true,” as we are prone to fall prey to our mental …

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Mumps orchitis still causes infertility years after childhood

Conditions
July 27, 2025

As a reproductive endocrinologist, I see countless patients who walk through my doors with quiet stories of loss—sometimes the loss of hope, sometimes the loss of time. But every year, there’s a particular group of gentlemen who share a strikingly similar history.

They come from different countries. Many grew up in regions where the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine was unavailable or inconsistently administered. They had mumps as children, recovered, and thought nothing …

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Institutional reporting systems discourage clinical honesty

Conditions
July 24, 2025

A few years ago, I said something in a meeting that made the air go still.

“People don’t actually feel safe filing ‘safe’ reports.”

I said it to a room full of leaders from the quality and safety team, the very people tasked with building trust and accountability. They didn’t argue. They just didn’t believe me.

They pointed to the anonymous portal. The reporting dashboard. The just culture training modules. They cited infrastructure.

I …

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How doctors can turn criticism into collaboration

Conditions
July 24, 2025

You’re in the OR. A colleague, maybe a resident, suggests a different approach. You’ve already considered it. Or maybe it’s not a great suggestion. Either way, it’s hard to hear. You feel your muscles tense and lean away from your colleague, avoiding eye contact. Defensiveness is a common and understandable dynamic.

A common dynamic

In the era of shared decision-making, physicians get all kinds of suggestions—not only from peers, but also from …

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Nurse-initiated protocols for sepsis: a strategic imperative for patient care and hospital operations

Conditions
July 24, 2025

Sepsis continues to pose a serious threat to patients and a significant challenge to hospital systems. Despite advances in awareness and clinical guidelines, delays in diagnosis and treatment remain common and costly. Sepsis is the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals and costs the U.S. health care industry $62 billion annually.

The ripple effects of sepsis extend far beyond the bedside, impacting everything from …

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