Physician

The physician who turned burnout into a mission for change

Physician

July 17, 2025

When I stepped away from my clinical practice, it wasn’t because I didn’t care. It was because I cared deeply—about my patients, my colleagues, and the future of medicine. I didn’t leave to escape. I left to help heal the culture that was quietly breaking so many of us.

You can love medicine and stop seeing patients. You can love medicine and change the way you see patients. Choosing to follow …

Time theft: the unseen harm of abusive oversight

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

Physician

July 17, 2025

Theft, in its essence, is the unlawful taking of something valuable from another. While usually associated with material possessions, it also extends to intangible assets such as time, reputation, and emotional well-being. When authorities like medical boards or the Department of Justice (DOJ) engage in unfair practices grounded in presumptive guilt, they are not just misusing their roles but actively stripping individuals of these invaluable resources—an abuse of power that …

Why more doctors are leaving clinical practice and how it helps health care

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA

Physician

July 16, 2025

The author of a recent article claimed that “we all lose” when an experienced physician prematurely leaves clinical medicine. Of course, it is inevitable that a clinical career will end, but whether patients and society suffer depends on what that retiring doctor does next. Increasingly, it seems, they pursue other ways to help patients and add value to the system by pursuing non-clinical careers. That’s a good thing, because:

There …
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Why more doctors are leaving clinical practice and how it helps health care

Harassment and overreach are driving physicians to quit

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

Physician

July 16, 2025

In the noble pursuit of healing, physicians, especially those in pain clinics, are increasingly caught between the growing burden of patient expectations and a tightening web of regulatory scrutiny. A recent clinical study and a related article on KevinMD converge to highlight a deeply troubling reality: Clinicians are not only being harassed by distressed patients but are also being punished by the systems meant to regulate or protect health care.

A …

Why starting with why can transform your medical practice

Neil Baum, MD

Physician

July 16, 2025

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why do your patients select you and your practice for their medical care?” Most medical practices offer the same service, i.e., evaluation and treatment, at approximately the same cost, and produce similar outcomes. After all, how many ways are there to treat a urinary tract infection, diabetes, hypertension, or arthritis? Most doctors are trained to offer similar services, which typically produce identical outcomes. So, why …

Life’s detours may be blessings in disguise

Osmund Agbo, MD

Physician

July 15, 2025

This past weekend, my wife and I made our way to Winnipeg, a sleepy town nestled in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The occasion? A family celebration. My niece and her husband had just welcomed a beautiful baby girl, and they insisted, almost reverently, that my wife become the godmother. It was a request we could not, and frankly, did not want to, refuse.

Winnipeg, or “Winterpeg” as some Canadians jokingly …

Inside the heart of internal medicine: Why we stay

Ryan Nadelson, MD

Physician

July 15, 2025

I’ve practiced outpatient internal medicine for over a decade, joining my current group straight out of residency. Since then, I’ve watched the landscape shift—corporate takeovers, tightening regulations, staffing shortages, and endless debates over salary, documentation, and work-life balance.

And yet—I still believe in this work.

Reimbursements have been cut. Morale has taken hits. But that’s not just an internal medicine problem—it’s a health care problem. Across every specialty, we’re navigating a system …

The quiet grief behind hospital walls

Aaron Grubner, MD

Physician

July 15, 2025

The slow beeping of the monitor comes to a halt and someone eventually shuts it off.

Click clack.

The machines are quiet now. I take one more look at the innocent, boyish young face and wonder what kind of life he had led. I leave the room, along with the rest of the team. A hand draws the curtain closed.

Death.

Quite literally, the most final force on Earth. The permanent, irreversible cessation of …

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The quiet grief behind hospital walls

How to advance workforce development through research mentorship and evidence-based management

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

Physician

July 14, 2025

In the current era of rapid health care changes, a very effective tool for workforce development is research mentorship based on evidence-based principles. As the health care industry faces a worsening shortage of professionals, the need to cultivate talent, empower early-career clinicians, and guide them through structured research and professional development is becoming more urgent. Research mentorship offers a replicable and transformative framework for addressing the health workforce crisis.

Research mentorship …

The truth about perfection and identity in health care

Ryan Nadelson, MD

Physician

July 14, 2025

As we move through life, questions of identity echo through our minds—bouncing like a pinball, scattered and relentless.

Am I a doctor? A friend? A colleague? A leader? A husband? A parent? A son? These questions don’t just arise—they linger. Because every day, we’re asked to balance who we truly are with who we’re expected to be. We carry the weight of responsibility, chasing clarity, meaning, and success. We show up …

Civil discourse as a leadership competency: the case for curiosity in medicine

All Levels Leadership

Physician

July 14, 2025

In the high-stakes, knowledge-driven world of medicine, we’re taught from day one to project an aura of certainty. From the anatomy lab to the hospital wards, the message is clear: know the answers, lead with confidence, and never let them see you sweat. But what if that fixation on “knowing” is holding us back? What if the very traits we’ve been trained to cultivate—the resolute certainty, the surgical precision, the …

When a medical office sublease turns into a legal nightmare

Ralph Messo, DO

Physician

July 13, 2025

An excerpt from The Doctor is Out—Justice vs Injustice in America.

In the hug of a crisp autumn morning, with the world adorned in the warm hues of changing leaves, the seed of an idea took root within me—an idea born from the necessity of expanding my medical practice to accommodate the growing needs of my patients.

Crossing the convoluted corridors of administrative tasks and logistical considerations, I found myself confronted …

Why the heart of medicine is more than science

Ryan Nadelson, MD

Physician

July 12, 2025

Take a moment—not just to see where you are, but to remember how far you’ve come.

Through obstacles that once felt impossible.

Through stress that nearly broke you.

Through moments when the weight of it all made you question everything.

But still—you kept going.

Because medicine isn’t just a job. It’s a calling.

And here, decisions aren’t just professional—they’re life and death.

You meet people at their most vulnerable, in their most intimate realities.

There’s no room for …

How Ukrainian doctors kept diabetes care alive during the war

Dr. Daryna Bahriy

Physician

July 12, 2025

When the full-scale war broke out in Ukraine, the country’s health care system was suddenly thrown into chaos. Hospitals were destroyed or severely damaged by missile attacks. Medical professionals were forced to flee, relocating to relatively safer areas in the western regions of the country. Millions of civilians became internally displaced. Amid this disruption, doctors in western Ukraine found themselves facing unprecedented challenges, trying to reorganize services and adapt rapidly …

How women physicians can go from burnout to thriving

Diane W. Shannon, MD, MPH

Physician

July 12, 2025

I’ve been working with women physicians intensively now for six years, and I’ve noticed a few things.

The women I work with are amazing. They are altruistic and caring. They are resilient, independent, and able to put others’ needs before their own. They are smart, detail-oriented, and care about getting things right.

If you’re a patient (and we all are at some point), this is exactly what you want in your doctor. …

Why more doctors are choosing direct care over traditional health care

Grace Torres-Hodges, DPM, MBA

Physician

July 10, 2025

Let’s start with a simple truth: Medicine is hard.

It’s hard for doctors, and it’s hard for patients. The headaches of today’s health care ecosystem—endless paperwork, shrinking appointment times, and the ever-present shadow of insurance approvals—can make it feel like the heart of medicine is slipping away.

Lost in the system

For years, I practiced in the traditional insurance-based model. I loved being a doctor, but I found myself spending more time on …

How to handle chronically late patients in your medical practice

Neil Baum, MD

Physician

July 9, 2025

An excerpt from Medicine is a Practice: The Rules for Healthcare Marketing.

“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!”
— The White Rabbit, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll wrote about the tardiness of the White Rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865. The problem of tardiness is older than the White Rabbit, and lack of punctuality plagues every profession and human interaction. Unfortunately, in the medical …

How early meetings and after-hours events penalize physician-mothers

Samira Jeimy, MD, PhD and Menaka Pai, MD

Physician

July 9, 2025

Medicine has long valorized the early riser – the physician who arrives before sunrise, who joins 7:30 a.m. meetings and stays for evening journal clubs, case conferences, and post-dinner networking events. These scheduling patterns have come to symbolize dedication, productivity, and professionalism. However, for many physicians, particularly those with caregiving responsibilities, these norms reflect more than tradition; they represent structural exclusion.

The architecture of medical professionalism was built on an outdated …

Why medicine must evolve to support modern physicians

Ryan Nadelson, MD

Physician

July 9, 2025

Physicians are human. Medicine is a career—not a lifelong vow of self-sacrifice.

Yes, for some, it may feel like a calling. But let’s be clear: Choosing medicine doesn’t mean surrendering your identity forever. Times have changed. Our mindset must, too.

Working part-time, seeking balance, or transitioning into leadership, education, or non-clinical roles is not a betrayal of the profession. It’s growth. Yet these choices are too often dismissed as abandonment.

We must let …

Why listening to parents’ intuition can save lives in pediatric care

Tokunbo Akande, MD, MPH

Physician

July 9, 2025

“The value of intuition in clinical practice” prompted me to reflect on one of the deeper regrets I carry from my clinical practice—those moments when I didn’t fully acknowledge or act upon a parent’s intuition, often a mother’s, that something was wrong with their child.

As clinicians, we are trained to listen for clinical “buzz words”—specific complaints or symptom patterns that guide our diagnostic reasoning. These cues form the backbone …

Physician

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