Conditions

How unclaimed bodies are fueling a medical ethics firestorm

Conditions
January 14, 2025

Last September, NBC News aired a one-sided report on the arrangement between a county coroner and a medical school apropos the transfer of unclaimed corpses with reportedly inadequate effort to find family. In addition to a grieving family, an academic bioethicist was interviewed who expressed horror at the transfer procedure. The report did a disservice both to bioethics and to necessary medical training and research.

In a similar incident, a coroner …

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The hidden grief of Black fathers after pregnancy loss

Conditions
January 13, 2025

In the United States, as many as 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage (before the end of the twentieth week of pregnancy) and approximately 1 percent in stillbirth (after the twentieth week, including time of delivery).

Parents who experience pregnancy loss are often left to grieve not only the child they never had the opportunity to know but also the loss of a future they had envisioned. The …

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The heartbreaking truth about advocating for aging parents in today’s health care system

Conditions
January 13, 2025

My parents were born on the same day, six years apart, Depression-era babies. My dad died on Christmas Eve, 2016. Nearly every Christmas season after that, for the next seven years, I hoped Mom would follow him.

Was I wrong to wish that?

Dad played Santa Claus for three decades, donning a suit that had belonged to his mother, along with her bearskin gloves and a set of sleigh bells. Eventually, he …

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I’ve felt the pain of 3 generations of nicotine addiction

Conditions
January 13, 2025

“Almost everyone I know has either quit” – my friend paused, “… or died.” She said the “or died” part with a bit more resignation than horror.

We were having this conversation outside of our busy local pub a few weeks ago. Some of us had stepped outside to get some fresh air, and someone pulled out a package of cigarettes and offered them around.

What was once a common occurrence now …

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Geographic disparities in advanced cancer care: a call for innovation

Conditions
January 12, 2025

Imagine two patients are diagnosed with liver cancer on the same day. Both have similar tumors and overall health. The only difference? Their zip codes. While we’d like to believe that all patients in the United States receive standardized care regardless of location, the reality is far more complex. Where a patient lives—and more specifically, which health care system they can access—may fundamentally alter their treatment options and outcomes.

This disparity …

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The rise of at-home hormone tests: a double-edged sword for patients

Conditions
January 12, 2025

At-home hormone testing kits have surged in popularity, offering individuals unprecedented access to tools they believe will help them understand their bodies. Marketed as convenient, empowering solutions to monitor fertility and general hormone health, these tests may seem like a valuable resource at first glance. However, the reality is far more complex. In many cases, these kits create confusion, unnecessary stress, and even lead to harmful interventions.

While the promise of …

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Navigating the ashes: Supporting emotional strength amid the Los Angeles wildfires

Conditions
January 11, 2025

As an employee assistance program (EAP) therapist at a hospital, I am often called upon to help people navigate the emotional fallout of life’s most challenging moments. The wildfires devastating Los Angeles bring a unique layer of grief, stress, and uncertainty to our community.

David Kessler, a leading voice on grief, emphasizes that loss is not limited to death—it is any change or …

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This perspective will change how physicians address pain and recovery

Conditions
January 11, 2025

I implore all physicians to watch the film Tipping the Pain Scale. Invited by a friend to view from the perspective of recovery, I accepted in support and out of curiosity for the proposed approach to the treatment of pain. As an osteopathic neuromusculoskeletal medicine physician, this is the chief complaint of many patients seeking care, often addressed with hands-on treatment considering structure and function and the unity of body, …

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Peer review case: a surgeon’s fight for due process

Conditions
January 11, 2025

We recently resolved a complex peer review case involving a surgeon in a Midwestern state. The case arose as the hospital began transitioning to an employed-physician model, seeking to phase out its non-employed, voluntary medical staff. Our client, a non-employed surgeon with privileges to treat patients at the hospital, was among those targeted in what appeared to be a strategic effort to remove voluntary non-employed physicians from the …

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You are already at the table: Letting go of perfectionism in health care

Conditions
January 10, 2025

A few years ago, I decided to pursue a PhD. Why … isn’t it obvious? Being a psychotherapist who helps health care professionals navigate burnout and imposter syndrome, raising three teenagers, and holding multiple certifications in everything from DBT to MBSR to CCISM wasn’t enough—or so I thought.

In my work, I help physicians, faculty, and other high-achieving professionals process the relentless pressure of their careers. I often explain that their …

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How a family caregiver saved my life during a rare medical crisis

Conditions
January 10, 2025

Americans heard a lot this campaign season about family caregivers. The federal government is making progress, but more needs to be done. I know about the importance of family caregiving; I’m alive today because a family caregiver advocated for me when I could not do that for myself.

At the age of 38, in January of 2005, I started having difficulty walking. My primary care doctor sent me to a neurologist, …

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How lab values management can improve cancer testing and treatment

Conditions
January 6, 2025

When it comes to medical breakthroughs, it can be a long journey between discovery and implementation.

Implementing new technologies and therapies for patients is often hindered by slow adoption, inaccurate application, and delays caused by the rapid pace of guideline updates, which providers may struggle to keep up with. These challenges can prevent patients from fully benefiting from medical breakthroughs, leaving their potential only partially realized.

For example, the development of genomic …

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From liquid handcuffs to miracle molecule: MOTAA would expand methadone access and help fight the overdose epidemic

Conditions
January 6, 2025

Kayla was referred to our addiction clinic after a visit to the emergency department for a skin infection, common in people who use drugs intravenously. Recognizing her fentanyl use was escalating out of her control, she made an appointment to discuss starting buprenorphine, a mainstay of treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). While our initial office visit with Kayla was straightforward and optimistic, during subsequent visits she continued to experience …

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The untold story of a nurse’s final shift after 47 years of service

Conditions
January 5, 2025

I was on the phone with my sister when I thought I heard a knock at the door. Then another. My dogs barked, and I told her, “Don’t hang up.” My chest tightened. Nightmares of someone coming for me flashed through my mind—a stranger lurking in the dark.

After more than 40 years as a nurse, transitioning from the chaos of the ER to the intensity of the ICU, I thought …

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My husband’s rare drunken disease made me an international advocate

Conditions
January 3, 2025

Can you imagine waking up drunk, or getting drunk in the middle of your workday without having touched a drop of alcohol?! When I first saw my husband Joe having these drunken episodes, I thought he must be secretly drinking or at least sleepwalking to the liquor cabinet.

He’d been having weird episodes for six years and got checked out by a neurologist, an endocrinologist, a cardiologist, and other specialists, but …

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I knew hospitals were not taking good care of doctors. But when I became a patient, I experienced it.

Conditions
January 2, 2025

I have spent nearly half a century in the world of health care leadership, first in management and later as a consultant. Throughout my career, one of my most consistent observations has been that most health care organizations do not treat physicians very well.

I knew it because I saw it nearly every day in the hospitals I worked with. But it wasn’t until this year that I experienced firsthand how …

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Physician suicide: Addressing the silent epidemic

Conditions
December 30, 2024

Suicide is the act of an individual ending their life. It is generally caused by the convergence of multiple factors, the most significant of which is untreated or end-stage psychiatric illness. As a practicing psychiatrist who has been involved in the Pennsylvania Physicians Health Program for more than a decade, I believe we need to do better to stem the increasing numbers of physician suicides. A better understanding of and …

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Navigating a rare neurodegenerative disorder as mother and daughter

Conditions
December 27, 2024

Before her diagnosis, my mom was extremely active and healthy. She loved bird watching, walking, and volunteering at her church and its school. So in 2013, when she began experiencing symptoms like incontinence and difficulties with walking, we knew that something wasn’t right.

We faced many potential explanations for my mom’s symptoms before receiving her diagnosis. I remember the doctors testing her for numerous diseases like diabetes and multiple sclerosis (MS), …

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Breaking the silence on physician burnout and suicide

Conditions
December 25, 2024

KevinMD has been publishing multiple reports about the current widespread, deeply worrisome physician burnout and suicide phenomena. As a card-carrying epidemiologist, I have sought to categorize these reports into the three overarching factors we might see in any epidemic, namely: agent, host, and environment. If we were to use this conceptual framework for research, we could gain a better understanding of how much each of its various facets contributes to …

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Long COVID and sleep: an urgent call to action

Conditions
December 22, 2024

Long COVID is real. For millions of people who contracted COVID-19, recovery has been a long and uncertain road. While many regained their health in weeks, others continue to face persistent symptoms and health problems for months or even years after the acute infection. Patients, caregivers, and clinicians alike have named this condition “long COVID,” while scientists often refer to it as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC).

The long-term effects of …

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