“We don’t want them here.”
President Trump could not have sent a clearer message to Muslim children around the world. In the eyes of our nation’s elected leader, these kids are not wanted in the United States.
Trump’s immigration policies have been focused on keeping “radical Islamic terrorists” out of the United States, but research in child psychiatry suggests that …
How President Trump may be radicalizing Muslim children
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 36-year-old woman is evaluated for a 1-week history of recurrent episodes of facial pain that are 1 to 3 seconds in duration and occur spontaneously dozens of times throughout the day. The pain is sharp, severe, and located in the right infraorbital area. During this same period, she has developed worsening …
MKSAP: 36-year-old woman with facial pain
You haven’t showered in a few days, and you haven’t brushed your teeth yet this morning. 
But, your baby is one month old today! You picked out the perfect outfit and made sure the lighting was just right for the perfect photo. You posted the best one on Facebook this morning, and you keep checking to see if anyone has “liked” the picture.
But, after …
Facebook may fuel new mothers’ insecurity. Here’s why.
Nearly 30 years ago, I attended the labor of a Vietnamese woman on an island off the coast of Thailand. The woman had malaria. She died a few hours after giving birth to her stillborn child.
That experience has never left me. It has fueled in me a passion for global health, and especially for alleviating suffering and death from tropical diseases such as malaria.
It is also worth remembering, however, that …
Malaria is not just a tropical disease
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
Expecting a baby? Congratulations! Giving birth today is not the same as when your mother gave birth. You have new options and different choices to make. You will recover faster than even before, and your participation will be requested. Ready? Let’s talk about …
Becoming a millennial mother: 3 tips for labor and delivery
Today, I cleaned the laceration above your eye from where he punched you with a closed fist. As I was stitching up the gaping wound with two layers of sutures, I told you that the scar would fade into the line of your eyebrow. I helped you apply your foundation on your neck to cover the bruising from where he strangled you. I monitored you for any swelling of your …
Tomorrow, we may fail you: Vignettes of pre-existing conditions
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 28-year-old man is evaluated for recurrent nephrolithiasis. Medical history is significant for Crohn disease complicated by multiple small bowel strictures requiring resection. He began developing kidney stones 3 years ago following his last bowel surgery. Analysis of the stones has consistently shown calcium oxalate, and he has been adherent to a …
MKSAP: 28-year-old man is evaluated for recurrent nephrolithiasis
She didn’t seem obviously depressed as I entered the room.
“So, we have you taking a good dose of both antidepressants now,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“I feel about the same.”
“Have you done anything lately that could have made you feel a little better?”
“I’m not sure …”
“I’ll give you some examples. They can be different things for different people. It could be reaching out to a friend, helping a neighbor, …
Help people let go of struggling and move toward valued living
I am devoted to my fitness tracker, having used it for several years to remind me to be active, monitor my diet and improve my sleep. Now The New York Times tells me it doesn’t make a difference, at least when it comes to the weight loss part of the program. And I might agree if only the evidence they relied on told the whole …
Some say fitness trackers don’t work. This physician disagrees.
July 10 will mark my tenth year as a nurse. When I began, I was shy and naive. Now I am already an old nurse, surprised by nothing and filled with battle stories. I’ve spent the last seven years working in a medical ICU, and I’ve seen and done so much. I counseled a bewildered husband on withdrawing care on his cancer-stricken wife. I got in a fight with a …
This Nurses Week: Ask your nurses if they are burned out
During my two years off from medical school, I’ve been volunteering as a court appointed special advocate for children in the foster care system. And I’ve spent a lot of time reading about how these kids’ experiences could affect the rest of their lives.
The seminal research on this happened in the late 1990s using data from more 17,000 Kaiser patients. What the researchers found was that patients who reported more adverse …
What this medical student learned after working with foster children
Recently, a nurse at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles noticed that comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s newborn baby had a murmur and was cyanotic and brought it to the newborn intensive care unit for further evaluation. That triggered a rush of activity that led to a diagnosis of a congenital heart defect and heart valve problem and surgery to save the baby’s life.
Here’s what the public doesn’t understand: Nurses do this every day. …
An ode to the nurse who saved Jimmy Kimmel’s baby
The human immune system is an amazing thing. There are thousands of microorganisms — millions, maybe — that are lurking out there, eager to make you sick. You breathe them in. They’re in every bite of food, and all over your hands when you rub your nose. We live in constant bombardment.
And they’re sneaky, too — with changing DNA and proteins to fool us. We’ve got soap and water and …
Give your body a real immune boost
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Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians.
A 57-year-old man is seen for follow-up evaluation after results of a carotid ultrasound obtained to investigate a left neck bruit show a mixed density plaque at the origin of the left internal carotid artery. Stenosis is estimated to be 60% to 80%. He has had no focal neurologic symptoms or visual …
MKSAP: 57-year-old man is seen after results of a carotid ultrasound
In a world of diverse mental health treatments and treatment settings, psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychotherapy have lost their former prominence. Only a small fraction of patients have the time, money, and interest to engage in long-term, open-ended mental exploration — even if doing so would get to the root of their problems and lead to lasting improvement.
More commonly, emotional distress is dealt with in emergency departments, in crisis clinics, on the medical and surgical floors of hospitals, in …
It’s time for psychodynamically informed clinical thinking
As a consultant in gynecologic pathology, I receive requests for second opinions from patients who have been diagnosed with endometrial hyperplasia. My opinion is based upon correlating the relevant clinical history with a review of the patient’s pathology slides and report. In my experience, there is a difference of opinion that leads to a change in treatment in about half of the cases. 75 percent of cases with changed diagnoses …
This gynecological issue is misdiagnosed over 50 percent of the time
No matter how well the one you love ornaments your life, they should never be an ornament. Meaning — you should never have to find them hanging in the closet like it’s some tree where each broken branch represents sadness, sickness and issues that only make sense in hindsight.
That metaphorical tree was as astonishing as Christmas morning yet as terrible as a Halloween horror. And although surreal — like Dali …
There she was, hanging in our closet
After years of declining rates of colorectal cancer (CRC), a study from the American Cancer Society raises the specter that not all is going as well as we would have hoped, especially among younger folks born since 1990. And that raises the question of what the future holds for this frequently preventable form of cancer, …
More young people are getting colorectal cancer. What do we do?
Two years ago, former President Barack Obama announced the Precision Medicine initiative in his State of the Union Address. The initiative aspired to a “new era of medicine” where disease treatments could be specifically tailored to each patient’s genetic code.
This resonated soundly in cancer medicine. Patients can already manage their cancer with therapies that target the specific genes that are altered in their particular tumor. For …
What Netflix can teach us about treating cancer
After Michael Uvanni’s older brother, James, was diagnosed with a deadly form of skin cancer, it seemed as if everyone told the family what they wanted to hear: Have hope. You can beat this, and we are here to help.
The brothers met with doctors at a half-dozen of the country’s best hospitals, all with impressive credentials that inspired confidence.
Michael Uvanni was in awe when he visited the University of Texas …
Widespread hype gives false hope to many cancer patients
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