Physician

Physicians writing on KevinMD about the life of the profession: the work itself, the exhaustion, what women physicians are paid and asked to carry, the losses the profession has been slow to name, and who decides how physicians work. Five maintained records draw on this archive: Physician burnout: what physicians say, in their own words, Primary care: what physicians say, in their own words, Women in medicine: what women physicians say, in their own words,, Physician suicide: what physicians say, in their own words, and Physicians and administrators: what physicians say about who runs medicine, in their own words.

Medical ethics and AI: Why losing oversight endangers patients

Bhavya Ancha, MD

Physician

March 3, 2026

At the end of December 2025, the American Medical Association (AMA) Journal of Ethics ceased its operations, now just a relic of the past. Its inception began in September 1999 with a journal theme entitled “Virtual Mentor Launches with a Nod to William Osler.” It references ethical decision-making, praise for Sir William Osler’s Aequanimitas, and the experience of the spoken word from a doctor to a patient’s ears. Its …

Psychological safety in health care: Why speaking up saves lives

Jalene Jacob, MD, MBA

Physician

March 2, 2026

During a busy morning, a junior nurse notices a discrepancy between a patient’s medication order and the usual dosing protocol. The unit is short-staffed, rounds are running behind, and the attending physician appears visibly rushed. The nurse hesitates, worried about slowing the team down or appearing inexperienced.

The unit manager who is present during rounds, notices the nurse’s hesitation and pauses the discussion. Rather than pushing forward, the manager says, “Before …

Evaluating the U.S. Surgeon General nominee: Why clinical experience matters

Benjamin González, MD

Physician

March 2, 2026

The single scariest moment in my medical career was not as a student, or a resident with the first dying trauma patient in front of me. Nor was it in Iraq on November 2, 2003, when two Chinooks were shot down and my ER was overwhelmed with trauma after trauma. It was the very first day as an attending in the ER. Up until then, in every single case in …

Health care credentialing is broken: How to fix the staffing crisis

Marc Ayoub, MD

Physician

March 2, 2026

Imagine a world-class anesthesiologist at a major hospital in Manhattan. She is fully credentialed, board-certified, and has been saving lives at that facility for 5 years. On her day off, she wants to pick up an extra shift at a surgery center 3 blocks away that is currently short-staffed and desperate for help. Logic says she should be able to walk in, show her “Ready-to-Work” status, and start. Instead, she …

Why I stopped accepting pharmaceutical-sponsored lunches

Timothy Lesaca, MD

Physician

March 2, 2026

A pharmaceutical representative recently brought lunch to my office to present a new drug. The drug may help some patients. The food was abundant. The room was full, with excess all around, including leftovers that were eventually thrown away. None of that is unusual in American medicine.

What has become unusual, at least for me, is how hard it now is to separate the plate in front of me from the …

Physician free speech rights under fire: the DOJ vs. patient education

Crystal Beal, MD

Physician

March 1, 2026

I never imagined that providing standard, evidence-based medical care, and explaining that care clearly to patients, could put me at risk of federal prosecution.

Yet that is the position I find myself in today.

I am a board-certified family medicine physician and the founder of a small queer- and trans-owned clinic providing gender affirming care. Our clinic is now at the center of a Department of Justice appeal after we Read more…

Physician free speech rights under fire: the DOJ vs. patient education

Rural maternity care in crisis: 5 solutions to save local OB units

Jesus Ruiz, MD

Physician

February 28, 2026

Across the United States, rural maternity care is in crisis. Hospitals continue to close labor and delivery units, entire counties are left without obstetric services, and pregnant patients are forced to travel hours for routine care or delivery. These closures are often framed as inevitable, driven by low volume, unsustainable costs, and staffing shortages, but this narrative ignores both the root causes of the problem and the solutions already within …

Bipolar I and the illusion of insight: a firsthand account

Tommy Saborido, MD

Physician

February 28, 2026

I’m Tommy. Bipolar type one, I’m told. I actually have something to say, something to share.

The thing no one talks about in mental health, bipolar type one specifically, is how seductive and sweet the upswing feels. It’s deeply more than just “good” to me. It feels like the limits of the brain have been cut loose, severed, done away with. Suddenly all those moments and ideas and thoughts and connections …

The hidden toll of physician regulatory investigations

Jean Paul Brutus, MD

Physician

February 28, 2026

I have spent my career believing in systems. As physicians, we are trained to trust oversight. We are taught that regulatory bodies exist to protect patients, maintain standards, and intervene when care falls below acceptable levels. We are taught that if we act ethically, document carefully, and prioritize patients, the system will ultimately be fair. What we are not trained for is what happens when that power becomes opaque.

Over the …

Learned helplessness and self-efficacy in tobacco treatment

Edward Anselm, MD

Physician

February 27, 2026

Treatment of people who use tobacco is different. Most treatments given to patients are reasonably successful, but cigarette smokers who are trying to quit will make multiple attempts before they remain abstinent, sometimes as many as twenty. Within hours of stopping, nicotine users can begin to experience withdrawal symptoms which include craving, anxiety, irritability, and restlessness that continue to increase and can rapidly be relieved by another cigarette.

Some people trying …

Why doctors struggle with health care system delays

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

Physician

February 27, 2026

As a pain physician, I spend my career advocating for patients who struggle to access appropriate pain management. I write often on hurdles like restrictive opioid policy, excessive regulatory scrutiny, prior authorization, and administrative burdens that detract from patient care. Yet nothing prepared me for the visceral reality of being the patient on the other side of the system.

From physician advocate to patient in the system

My recent experience, unrelated to …

Physician mental health and suicide prevention: stories of survival

Michael F. Myers, MD

Physician

February 26, 2026

An excerpt from Physicians With Lived Experience: How Their Stories Offer Clinical Guidance (APA Publishing, 2025).

Foreword by Jennifer Breen Feist

Foreword by Jennifer Breen Feist, who lost her beloved sister, Dr. Lorna Breen, to suicide on April 26, 2020. After describing the initial shock and unwanted global publicity of her death, she wrote this:

As the emails, letters, and phone calls continued to pour in, my husband …

The enduring value of the physical exam in modern medicine

Francisco M. Torres, MD

Physician

February 26, 2026

I recall the moment I fully grasped the critical importance of the physical exam and how easily it can be overlooked, often with serious consequences.

Early in my fellowship, an elderly patient was referred to our team with an apparently straightforward case of sciatica. His MRI revealed a disc herniation at L5/S1 with foraminal narrowing, prompting discussion about whether an epidural injection or surgery would be more beneficial. I was tasked …

Health care price transparency: Why patients are bypassing insurance

Sally Daganzo, MD

Physician

February 26, 2026

I recently went to Quest Diagnostics for a TB test and a couple of basic labs my doctor ordered. At check-in, I recalled my insurance had changed in the new year and I did not have the updated information readily available. I did not have time to reschedule nor sort it out so figured I could pay cash and reconcile it later. That seemed reasonable, if inconvenient.

When I asked what …

The ticking clock: How time constraints in medicine hurt patient care

Timothy Lesaca, MD

Physician

February 25, 2026

We are taught to watch for conflicts of interest in the form of pharmaceutical pens and consulting checks, yet we often overlook the most pervasive corruption of all: the ticking of the clock.

We traditionally describe medical conflicts of interest in corporate terms: free dinners, speaking fees, and consulting arrangements. These temptations are real, and they deserve the scrutiny and rules we apply to them. But they are external distractions. The …

“The only thing that will change will be our name”: a private equity cautionary tale

Anonymous

Physician

February 25, 2026

“The only thing that will change will be our name.”

These were the words shared by a senior partner when our staff was informed that the partnership had decided to sell the practice to a private equity firm. Unfortunately, as the story unfolded, that was also the moment that my future changed.

I was an associate when those now infamous words were uttered. While I was wary of this transition, it was …

Leadership in action: How a broken pager fixed a hospital

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

February 24, 2026

Sometimes, the smallest failures expose the largest truths. At a remote Air Force base hospital, a silent pager revealed not my incompetence, but my supervisor’s lack of leadership, and set in motion a chain of events that reshaped the hospital’s command structure and ultimately influenced the future of Air Force pediatrics.

What began as a malfunction during an award ceremony became the catalyst for decisive leadership, a reorganization of medical services, …

Profits before patients: the hidden cost of U.S. health care

Dr. Shantanu Rai

Physician

February 24, 2026

If you want to understand what “profits before patients” means in American health care, don’t start with a spreadsheet. Start with a story.

During residency, I cared for a middle-aged mother of two who came to our community hospital emergency room struggling to breathe. It didn’t take long to realize she needed something we couldn’t offer: urgent heart surgery at a larger hospital.

After a 30-hour shift, I filed the transfer request …

Why maintenance of certification varies widely: a system in crisis

Brian Hudes, MD

Physician

February 24, 2026

If you asked ten physicians to explain how they maintain board certification, you’d get at least ten different answers, maybe more. Some take quarterly quizzes. Some submit CME attestations every five years. Some do both. Others, grandfathered in before time-limited certification existed, do nothing at all. Yet every one of them carries the same professional label: board-certified physician.

That simple title, once synonymous with competence, now hides a dizzying patchwork of …

AI governance in health care: Why physicians must lead the design

Tod Stillson, MD

Physician

February 23, 2026

Artificial intelligence is no longer approaching medicine. It is already embedded inside it. It drafts our notes. It summarizes research. It suggests differentials. It triages messages. It promises efficiency, scale, and relief from burnout. Physicians are adopting it quickly. That speed should give us pause.

The greatest threat facing physicians in 2026 is not resisting artificial intelligence. It is allowing artificial intelligence in health care to be designed without us. Every …

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