Conditions

The patient carryover crisis: Why discharge education fails

Conditions

November 28, 2025

I still remember the feeling of relief standing by my uncle’s bedside. The monitors were humming with steady rhythms; the surgical team was congratulating themselves on a textbook procedure. By all clinical metrics, he was a success story. The intervention worked. The pathology was addressed. He was “stable.”

We celebrated his discharge as a victory lap. We trusted that the packet of papers in his hand (filled with appointments, medication schedules, …

Why diagnostic error is high in offices

Susan L. Montminy, EdD, MPA, RN and Marlene Icenhower, JD, RN

Conditions

November 28, 2025

The National Academy of Medicine defines diagnostic error as “the failure to (a) establish an accurate and timely explanation of the patient’s health problem(s) or (b) communicate that explanation to the patient.” Office-based practices are the predominant setting for malpractice claims related to diagnostic error.

Yes, office-based care settings.

Fast-paced, high-acuity emergency departments (EDs) have fewer malpractice claims related to diagnostic error than physician offices, according to recent research. Furthermore, 53 …

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Why diagnostic error is high in offices

Medical statistics errors: How bad data hurts clinicians

Gerald Kuo

Conditions

November 27, 2025

Last winter, a senior nurse in our psychiatric unit told me, “The dashboard says we’re low-risk. But during night shifts, I don’t even feel safe walking to the bathroom.”

The monthly quality report on her desk said the same thing it had said for nearly a year: “Violence incidents: no significant difference among the three wards (p > .05).”

On paper, her ward looked normal. At the bedside, it was anything but.

Her …

Why food perfectionism harms parents

Wendy Schofer, MD

Conditions

November 27, 2025

The recent Atlantic article by Olga Khazan, “Avoiding Ultraprocessed Foods is Completely Unrealistic. Especially if you have kids,” brought a concern that I’ve carried for a long time into full clarity: Our worries about family weight and eating habits aren’t actually about the physical body. They’re about perfection. And they are a call to approach health completely differently.

I am a pediatrician working at the intersection of family stress, emotional …

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Why food perfectionism harms parents

Autism prevalence surveillance: a reckoning, not a crisis

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Conditions

November 26, 2025

A recent Wall Street Journal graphic traces the rise in autism prevalence among eight-year-olds from 2000 to 2020. The slope is unmistakable, upward, steady, and steep. But it’s not a crisis. It’s a reckoning.

Each inflection point on that chart marks a milestone in institutional clarity:

2000: The CDC begins formal autism surveillance.
2007: The American Academy of Pediatrics urges universal screening at …
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Autism prevalence surveillance: a reckoning, not a crisis

Our relationship with medicine: a triumph

Joseph Shaw

Conditions

November 26, 2025

Take a look in your medicine cabinet. What you see isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a testament to one of the greatest partnerships in modern life: the one between your body and medical science. From the vaccine you got as a kid to the pill that keeps your blood pressure in check, these interventions aren’t just treating sickness. They are part of who you are. In a world still …

Is direct primary care sustainable in a downturn?

Dana Y. Lujan, MBA

Conditions

November 25, 2025

Primary care innovation has always been framed around access, autonomy, burnout, and patient experience. Direct primary care (DPC) in particular is often positioned as a solution for physicians exhausted by fee-for-service complexity and for patients who want a more personal relationship with their doctor.

This article focuses on how the broader economic landscape has shifted in ways that directly affect DPC, especially in light of the rapidly evolving national discussion around …

How movement improves pelvic floor function

Martina Ambardjieva, MD

Conditions

November 24, 2025

Most people exercise to improve cardiovascular fitness, metabolic health, or mood, but regular physical activity also plays a significant role in sexual and urinary function. As a urologist, I routinely see how movement influences two intimate yet essential systems: the reproductive system and the lower urinary tract.

When patients present with urinary leakage, erectile changes, or reduced libido, they often expect a prescription or procedure. Yet for many, measurable improvement begins …

How immigrant physicians solved a U.S. crisis

Eram Alam, PhD

Conditions

November 24, 2025

In the decades following the passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the face of American medicine irrevocably changed. This bill expedited the rapid entry of physicians from post-colonial Asian nations into the U.S. in significant numbers. In this migratory flow, South Asian physicians, in …

Pediatric leadership silence on FDA ADHD recall

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Conditions

November 24, 2025

“The FDA has issued a nationwide recall of lisdexamfetamine capsules.”

That sentence in Newsweek magazine should have triggered alerts, guidance, and coordinated response. Instead, the silence from pediatric leadership has been deafening. Newsweek turned to the FDA and the American Academy of Family Physicians. Where are the leadership of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics? Silent. Why?

The recall that should have sparked action

In …

The ethical conflict of the Charlie Gard case

Timothy Lesaca, MD

Conditions

November 24, 2025

Some cases linger in our memory because of the humanity at their center. The case of Charlie Gard, which unfolded in England in 2017, is one of those. It took place within the National Health Service and under a legal framework in which courts decide a child’s treatment when parents and clinicians cannot agree. Before it became a global controversy, before it drew international headlines, it began as something far …

The ethics of mandatory Tay-Sachs testing

Sheryl J. Nicholson

Conditions

November 23, 2025

Introduction

Tay-Sachs disease is a devastating genetic disorder that primarily affects individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, though it is also found among Cajuns in Louisiana and French-Canadians. This fatal condition typically manifests within the first six months of life and leads to progressive neurological deterioration, often resulting in death by age five. As medical science advances, the question arises: Should genetic testing for Tay-Sachs be mandatory for all individuals of reproductive …

Why toys matter in the exam room

Diego R. Hijano, MD

Conditions

November 23, 2025

Children often surprise us with the seriousness they bring to a clinic visit. Every so often, when the room feels tense, I turn to a simple question and ask what their favorite toy is. Caregivers smile, and children lean forward with the kind of excitement that only play can spark. In a moment, the atmosphere changes. The room feels lighter, the conversation easier, and the visit begins to unfold with …

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Why toys matter in the exam room

Glioblastoma immunotherapy trial: a new breakthrough

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian

Conditions

November 22, 2025

All clinical trials are fueled, in part, by optimism. A trial currently underway in California is fueled by the optimism of one patient in particular, Kayvon Goodarzy.

Despite decades of effort, there has been an abject lack of new approved therapies for glioblastoma (GBM). The standard of care for this deadly brain tumor has been chemotherapy and radiation, to less-than-ideal results. But that might be changing, and it’s all thanks …

New autism treatment guidelines expand options for families

Carrie Friedman, NP

Conditions

November 22, 2025

When the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry released its October 2025 policy statement expanding what counts as valid, evidence-supported autism treatment, it marked a turning point that has been needed for years. For more than a decade, insurance companies pushed a narrow, outdated narrative that applied behavior analysis was the only evidence-based intervention for autism. That narrative was not accurate. It shaped policy, and it left families with …

Is white coat hypertension harmless?

Monzur Morshed, MD and Kaysan Morshed

Conditions

November 22, 2025

It happens almost every clinic day. A patient walks in, sits down for their vital signs, and their blood pressure reads higher than expected. Sometimes much higher. Moments later, when I retake it myself after we’ve talked for a few minutes, it’s 20 or 30 points lower.

“But, doctor, I check it at home and it’s never this high!”

They are right. This is the phenomenon of white coat hypertension, blood pressure …

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Is white coat hypertension harmless?

Gen Z, ADHD, and divided attention in therapy

Ronke Lawal

Conditions

November 21, 2025

Halfway through a teletherapy session, you notice your therapist pause mid-sentence. They’ve just heard the soft clatter of your keyboard, or seen your eyes flick sideways to a second screen. You’re technically “there” on video, but a work email just popped up, laundry is buzzing, someone’s messaging you, and suddenly the session is sharing space with three other tabs in your brain.

On the therapist’s end, it can feel like talking …

Early-onset breast cancer: a survivor’s story

Sara Rands

Conditions

November 21, 2025

I found a lump at age 32, just four months after a clear clinical breast exam. No family history. No genetic markers. I noticed the golf-ball-sized mass one day while putting on my bra.

It turned out to be stage 3C, with spread to 14 lymph nodes, as advanced as it gets without being terminal. I went through a year of aggressive treatments: bilateral mastectomy, chemo, radiation, reconstruction, and hormone therapy.

My …

Remote second opinions for equitable cancer care

Yousuf Zafar, MD

Conditions

November 20, 2025

Where a person lives far too often determines the quality of cancer care they receive and, ultimately, their chances of survival. Despite decades of progress in precision oncology, stark disparities persist between patients treated in urban academic centers and those in rural or underserved communities. A JAMA Network Open study of nearly 37,000 patients found that when rural and urban patients receive the same, protocol-driven care, their outcomes …

Why psychiatrists can’t treat family members

Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD

Conditions

November 19, 2025

As a psychiatrist, I’m often asked by family or friends to “help,” to intervene in the mental struggles of a loved one, a friend, or even a distant acquaintance. It usually begins with kindness and concern: “Could you just talk to them?” or “Maybe you can prescribe something, you’d know what’s best.” What follows is always a difficult conversation, because I have to explain something that sounds incomprehensible to most …

Conditions

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