Welcome to The Podcast by KevinMD.
Hosted by Kevin Pho, MD, The Podcast by KevinMD shares the stories of the many who intersect with our health care system but are rarely heard from. 15 minutes a day. 7 days a week.
“Interviewing for medical schools was intense, excruciating, and terrifying. Despite the difficult questions, there are three that stand out to me. The first was to differentiate sympathy from empathy, where I spent 30 minutes defending my answer to be met with complete silence. He could have asked me anything, yet he sat …
“Mid-career colleagues: it’s time to go back to the future.
Time to learn again. Time to build professional and social networks at work. Take a lunch break. Bring home a few fewer RVUs.
I recently started a monthly journal club for our small section of gastroenterologists as a way to recreate some of what …
“COVID was ominously not only drowning people in their own spit but struck in different shades to alter human personality that kept helplessly getting lost in the maze of their own minds. It made the young maniacal, hearing voices and talking to walls in a schizophrenic frenzy. It made the elderly become …
“We all go through our early lives in the S-curve of our medical education–college, medical school, residency, early practice. As you reach the mastery phase, I would posit that there is a downward dip as we realize that we are no longer in that exciting hypergrowth phase. The search for a new …
“We won’t know until 2022 or later whether there will be an increase in claims related to the pandemic. When a medical error occurs, it’s not like an automobile accident. Everybody nearby knows when there’s been an automobile accident because they hear screeching tires, a loud crash, and then sirens. But when …
“We know this is true in our hearts and minds, but we also know it to be true in documentable terms. Studies have proven that strong, empathic engagement between doctors and their patients increases patients’ willingness to report symptoms and concerns. That in turn improves diagnostic accuracy. Empathy increases patient engagement …
“How do we combat all these beliefs that can make doctors into bad investors? I have a few thoughts.
First of all, don’t panic. Most of us are indeed starting behind the eight-ball when it comes to wealth accumulation. But even with a shorter runway, physicians make enough money to make up for …
“These are extraordinary times. Leaders have the opportunity to seize the day, to lean into this turning point in health care delivery, to drive organizational transformation, and to emerge from the devastation of the pandemic with an organization in which patients and clinicians thrive.
You simply have to ask yourself, are you willing …
“We can move from being a reactor to creator. Creators think of the future and make it start happening today. Reactors are just dealing with the crisis at hand, not progressing, feeling stuck, feeling like life is unfair. Reactors are people-pleasing, reacting to everything said, constantly worrying about how to win …
“With the obvious accounted for, we turned to the obscure, the area of medicine where judgment and experience come into play. Fortunately, we received sound advice and guidance from the infectious disease physicians. Stick to the basics, they stressed, only do them better. We continued our patient on the first-line anti-TB drugs …
“We need you to join the ranks of this time-honored profession with new eyes and determined minds and eyes that see medicine’s problematic foundations and minds that are willing to act on it. Because it is you, future medical students, who will soon take up the mantle of pushing medicine to change …
“Ever the teacher, the Dr. Lown we knew modeled ‘The Lost Art of Healing’ (the title of one of his books) in the clinic, the laboratory, and the halls of power. As health professionals, we watched him listen carefully to his patients; as citizens, we saw him listen deeply to our …
“Legislative advocacy has become difficult for the severe autism population since the DSM-5 lumped Asperger’s syndrome with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Further complicating the matter, a new population recently emerged who identify as “autistic” without having a diagnosis from a qualified health care professional.
Without a clear distinction for various parts of the spectrum, …
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“My thoughts immediately went to the tragic loss of one of my best clients, a physician who recently passed away after battling COVID-19. I remember him not only as an excellent physician but even more so as a great person.
Unlike many physicians I speak to in the course of my work, this …
“Even though there has been a lot of progress, LGBTQ youth are still struggling with discrimination. I am disheartened that 40 percent of LGBTQ youth surveyed by the Trevor project in 2020 seriously considered suicide in the previous 12 months, and the amount of LGBTQ youth reaching out to the Trevor project …
“Taking control of distress is done by embracing the concept of ‘mental fitness.’ Being mentally fit enables one to overcome the negative emotions that have traditionally sabotaged our lives, both personally and professionally. Similar to physical fitness optimizing our bodily strength, mental fitness promotes achievement in our performance, relationships, and sense …
“Before COVID-19, I left the practice of medicine for what would turn out to become an entire year. While away, I found a new way of seeing our hearts and bodies as humans in the medical profession, allowing me to return.
Here are five lessons I learned in the hope they might help …
“Don’t be the patient that says: ‘Doc, just tell me what to do …’ Instead, you should ask for information to empower yourself to make decisions about your healing process. Framing questions around the clinician’s experience is always a good starting point; pretend to be the doctor for just a moment and …
“Continuing to do this work the way I was doing it was not sustainable. I needed to get off the merry-go-round. I just didn’t know how. I didn’t think I could stop myself—transplant was my duty, my responsibility, and what I was trained and programmed to do. It was hard to imagine …
This article is sponsored by the Dragon Ambient eXperience at Nuance. The exam of the future has arrived with clinical documentation that writes itself.
Recently, I participated in a virtual webinar, “How …
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