Conditions and Diseases

Physicians writing on KevinMD about the diseases they treat and the people who have them: cancer and its screening arguments, pain and the drugs that treat it, diabetes and the obesity argument, mental illness and who gets treated for it, and the decisions at the end of a life. Five maintained records draw on this archive: Cancer: what physicians say, in their own words, Opioids: what physicians and pain patients say, in their own words, End of life: what physicians say, in their own words, Diabetes and obesity: what physicians say, in their own words, and Mental health: what psychiatrists and physicians say, in their own words.

Why psychiatric overdiagnosis fails the students who suffer

Richard A. Lawhern, PhD

July 2, 2026

On June 29, 2026, psychologist Adam Omary published a landmark observation in the Boston Globe, titled “The disability accommodation trap on college campuses.” As he observed:

“It was well-intentioned when the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended in 2008 to include mental health conditions and learning disabilities as eligible for accommodations. But in practice, it created incentives for overdiagnosis. As The Harvard Crimson reported in December, the share of …

Can emotional regulation in medicine reduce errors?

Deborah Rozman, PhD

Conditions and Diseases

July 2, 2026

Health care professionals are trained to diagnose, decide, and act under pressure. Yet one of the most important factors influencing clinical judgment, patient trust, and resilience is often overlooked: emotional self-regulation.

Emotional regulation is not just a personal wellness practice that clinicians might pursue outside work to reduce stress or improve work-life balance. Today, it is increasingly being recognized as an essential clinical competency to practice, to reset, and to renew …

Why I hesitate to sign ADHD accommodation forms

Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD

Conditions and Diseases

July 1, 2026

Every year, my desk fills with increasingly complex paperwork. School systems, testing boards, and corporate human resources departments request formal validation to grant specific accommodations, most commonly extended time or modified environments, for individuals diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. As a psychiatrist who has spent decades observing the human condition, I find myself increasingly reluctant to sign these forms.

This hesitation does not stem from skepticism about the condition itself. …

When dark humor in EMS goes quiet, pay attention

Emily James, NREMT-P

Conditions and Diseases

June 30, 2026

It happens about forty minutes into a shift, or forty minutes after a bad call, or sometimes just in the break room on a Tuesday afternoon when someone says something that has no business being funny. And the whole crew laughs.

If you’re new, you won’t know what to do with this. You’ll look at the people around you, competent, caring professionals by every observable measure, and wonder what is wrong …

The physician burnout fix nobody prescribes

Michael Carlini

Conditions and Diseases

June 30, 2026

There’s a quiet assumption baked into how most physicians think about their careers: If you have the capacity to earn a certain income, you should. More RVUs, more shifts, more call. The math always seems to point in one direction.

I want to question that assumption, because I’m watching it cost the doctors I coach something they can’t get back. When physicians come to me feeling depleted, the first instinct, theirs …

Dental fear is not really about pain

Mariam Olayode

Conditions and Diseases

June 30, 2026

I used to hide my smile in photographs.

Not because I was shy. Not because I was having a bad day. But because I had convinced myself that my teeth were too big, too much, too visible. I watched people with smaller, neater teeth and quietly wished mine were different. I kept my lips together in every picture for years.

I am a dental surgery assistant. And for a long time, I …

Read more…

Dental fear is not really about pain

What a code blue feels like when CPR fails

Matthew Russell, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 30, 2026

An excerpt from House of Perdition.

Ten minutes into the code, and I could already feel the difference. I could feel her broken ribs grind against each other with every compression. The first set of compressions had been stiff, like trying to force a thick textbook to bend in half, the sternum protecting the heart and lungs. Each compression was unforgiving, and the chest recoiled with a force equivalent to …

The closed door: HIV stigma in clinical training

Max Jared Bajer, RN

Conditions and Diseases

June 30, 2026

Her door was always closed. Every other mother on that maternity ward had hers open. You could hear them from the hallway: the soft sounds of newborns, the low voices of partners and grandmothers, the particular exhausted joy of those first hours. Nurses moved in and out freely. Students stopped to peek, to congratulate, to practice the small rituals of care that we were there to learn. The ward had …

Moral injury in medicine: the cost of endless accommodation

Eddie Saliba, APRN, FNP-C

Conditions and Diseases

June 29, 2026

When the pattern became impossible to ignore

A patient came into the office after two or three days of cough, congestion, body aches, and fatigue. Fairly typical upper respiratory symptoms. I offered to test him for COVID. He scoffed and dismissively declined any viral testing.

Apparently he already “knew” what this was. According to him, it was “turning into bronchitis,” and what he “needed” was a Z-pack. I explained that after only …

Why your leaky gut tests aren’t fixing your symptoms

Shiv K. Goel, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 29, 2026

Irene came in for migraines.

Thirty-six years old. Elementary school teacher. Already diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. Already scoped twice, endoscopy and colonoscopy both showing diffuse inflammation, gastritis, GERD. Already told she couldn’t tolerate GLP-1 medications because of her IBS. She had done her research online and found me.

She seemed, on the surface, like a patient with a well-documented GI history and a headache problem. I almost missed what was actually …

The hidden liability inside continuous patient monitoring

Chinmeri Nwuba

Conditions and Diseases

June 29, 2026

Over time, the medical environment has witnessed several happenings that point to an interesting shift in the way patients are monitored. Of late, patients now wear smartwatches that quietly track heart rate variability and oxygen saturation throughout the day. Others rely on a continuous glucose monitor that sends metabolic data to a smartphone in real time. Someone else sleeps with a ring that records temperature, respiratory rate, and patterns of …

A poem on the doctor-patient relationship and facing fear

Michele Luckenbaugh

Conditions and Diseases

June 28, 2026

I sit within four silent walls,
Waiting for answers
That may never come.
The clock moves,
The sun rises and falls,
Yet the questions remain.
Uninvited companions occupying
Every corner of the room.

What is happening within me?
Why does this pain cling so tightly,
Wrapping itself around muscle, bone,
Thought and spirit?

I try to escape it.
I call upon memories of laughter,
Of loved ones gathered around a table,
Of morning birdsong
And summer breezes moving through trees.

But pain is stubborn.
It follows me there,
Casting …

How to build an ADHD treatment plan beyond medication

Carrie Friedman, NP

Conditions and Diseases

June 28, 2026

When a child is diagnosed with ADHD, the conversation is often much narrower. Medication. Maybe a school form. Maybe a vague suggestion to “try therapy.” Then parents are sent back into the same exhausted home, the same chaotic mornings, the same homework battles, the same social struggles, the same emotional explosions, and the same school system that often does not know what to do with a child who is bright, …

Racial bias in schizophrenia diagnosis must end

Timothy Lesaca, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 28, 2026

A young Black woman waits in a psychiatric emergency room. She is grieving, traumatized, and depressed. The clinician, however, describes her as “guarded,” “hostile,” and “paranoid” in the chart. She leaves with a schizophrenia diagnosis, a prescription for a first-generation antipsychotic, and a future shaped by a label she should never have received.

This is not a hypothetical situation. The Harvard Review of Psychiatry documented this case in 2023. She was …

Post-acute ventilator care does not end at discharge

JoNel Chensky, RRT

Conditions and Diseases

June 28, 2026

A patient discharged from the ICU on a ventilator may no longer fit the traditional image of “critical care,” but that does not mean the medical complexity disappears.

In post-acute ventilator units, respiratory failure continues to be managed every day through ventilator monitoring, airway and secretion management, weaning attempts, oxygen titration, tracheostomy care, and ongoing assessment across interdisciplinary teams. The setting changes. The clinical dependency often does not. Yet once these …

Rushed adult ADHD evaluations put patients at risk

Carrie Friedman, NP

Conditions and Diseases

June 26, 2026

Adult ADHD is real. It is impairing. It is often missed, especially in bright, high-achieving adults, women, and people who learned to compensate for years before finally burning out. But the solution to underdiagnosis cannot be overdiagnosis.

We are now seeing a second problem emerge: rushed adult ADHD evaluations, often completed in 30 to 60 minutes, sometimes based heavily on a brief questionnaire, followed quickly by stimulant prescribing. The patient may …

Central sensitization is the key to treating chronic pain

Eric Anderson, MD, PhD, MBA

Conditions and Diseases

June 26, 2026

Behavioral health is a core component of first-line, non-opioid treatment for chronic pain in most major medical guidelines, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American College of Physicians, the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Neurology, the American Headache Society, and the American College of Gastroenterology. And yet, the concept of behavioral health to treat chronic pain still surprises many people, including …

Why the case against APOE4 testing no longer holds

Ron Carr

Conditions and Diseases

June 26, 2026

I remember the moment clearly. A hot July day, standing at my mailbox, opening an envelope from a genetic testing company. I expected reassurance. Instead, I saw a result sitting in the bright red end of the risk continuum. As far from “OK” as it could get.

Years earlier, my son had mentioned that his 23andMe test showed he carried a gene that might lead to Alzheimer’s “when he was old.” …

Early Alzheimer’s diagnosis now decides who gets treated

Dr. Emer MacSweeney

Conditions and Diseases

June 26, 2026

When Bill Ritter, a longtime anchor for WABC-TV New York’s ABC7 Eyewitness News, recently announced that he had been diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease, he shared that he is receiving treatments that are keeping the disease’s progression at bay. Unfortunately, many patients never receive the same opportunity for treatment because they are diagnosed too late.

With Alzheimer’s disease, delayed diagnosis can determine whether patients qualify for new treatments, clinical trials, and …

Rethinking neuroplasticity and mental health in psychiatry

Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD

Conditions and Diseases

June 26, 2026

Every week, a familiar reflection settles into the corners of my mind as I look at my office desk. As a practicing psychiatrist, my days are spent navigating a gentle but persistent paradox. On one hand, my workspace is increasingly filled with paperwork: diagnostic standardizations, complex neuropsychological testing matrices, and formal institutional accommodation forms designed to categorize human behavior into neat, permanent columns. On the other hand, sitting across from …

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