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What Adam Smith would say about America’s for-profit health care

Policy

May 25, 2025

Over 80 percent of people are discontented with their medical insurance, whether provided by the government, their employer, or a commercial company. Common complaints are cost, increasing prices, and limited or rejected coverage. Regardless of the insurance’s source, we, the citizens, pay the bill through higher co-payments, deductibles, or premiums. Thus, their future payments increase when people request increased coverage for specific treatments, tests, or conditions.

However, individual desires are not …

Why self-care must become medicine’s new standard

Jessie Mahoney, MD

Physician

May 25, 2025

We were taught that sacrificing ourselves is noble. That resilience is enduring. And that suffering and struggling are valiant.

We were taught rest is optional, complacent, lazy—something for other, less busy, less important people.

We were also taught to see “self-care” as somewhat indulgent.

Self-care is often thought of as something earned. A guilty pleasure.

Even the words commonly used in medicine to describe caring for ourselves—”self-care”—sound indulgent.

“Caring for ourselves as well” is not …

How societal narratives trap us and how to escape

Jillian Rigert, MD, DMD

Physician

May 25, 2025

Lose weight and you’ll be happy,
They say …

I wasn’t happy,
I was exhausted and depleted.

You’re so disciplined,
They say …

As I starved myself
And had to earn my food.

I wish I could have your problem,
They say …

Brainwashed into thinking,
Smaller is better.

How do you always eat so “healthy”?
They ask …

While my list of “safe” foods
Grows shorter and shorter.

As I dream of being free
And escaping the prison in my mind …

They wonder how to be …

How a homeless mathematician taught me the true meaning of success

Anonymous

Physician

May 25, 2025

I was, without a doubt, in a desperate place—going back to school after not taking a math course in over six years and attempting to study calculus. It was as stressful as it sounds. Like so many of the students in my post-baccalaureate cohort, we deeply valued our education at this point—which is not surprising, considering we all had to work jobs to pay for it. But luckily, I had …

Registered dietitians on your care team [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

May 24, 2025

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Registered dietitian Ava Safir and physician advocate Kim Downey discuss their article, “Why patients need a registered dietitian on their health care team.” They highlight the often-overlooked yet crucial role registered dietitians …

Bureaucracy over care: How the U.S. health care system lost its way

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

Physician

May 24, 2025

The health care system, in theory, operates on one fundamental principle: to prioritize patient welfare. Yet, contemporary systems in many regions, particularly the United States, have increasingly veered off course, entangling themselves in a jungle of bureaucracy, regulation, and profit-driven motives that obscure the vital role patients play as the focal point of care. The result is a system riddled with inefficiencies, frustration, and barriers to optimal health care delivery.

ER threats aren’t rare anymore—they’re routine

Patrick Hudson, MD

Physician

May 24, 2025

I read Dr. Harry Severance’s recent piece, “Violence in health care: Why doctors and nurses are leaving,” with a sinking feeling of recognition. He’s right. Health care is becoming the most dangerous profession in America. Violence is no longer rare or shocking—it’s something every physician and nurse now half-expects at some point in their career.

I still remember an early shift in the ER when I was stitching up a …

JFK warned us about physical fitness. Sixty years later, we’re still not listening.

Alexandre Bourcier, MD

Conditions

May 24, 2025

“We are under-exercised as a nation; we look instead of play; we ride instead of walk.”
—John F. Kennedy, Sports Illustrated, 1960

In 1960, then-President-elect John F. Kennedy issued a striking warning: Americans were becoming physically unfit, and this trend threatened not just individual health, but the vitality of the nation itself. He saw physical activity as foundational to our strength—not just as a people, but as a country. Over sixty years …

The silent threat in health care layoffs

Todd Thorsen, MBA

Tech

May 24, 2025

The health care industry rightfully remains vigilant against external cyber threats, with the Director-General of the World Health Organization even labeling file loss from ransomware as potentially “issues of life and death.” Patient safety and the sanctity of confidential health information are paramount—which are also the very reasons health care organizations are prime targets for malicious actors. But as economic headwinds lead to corporate layoffs and government budget cuts dominate …

Why true listening is crucial for future health care professionals [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

May 23, 2025

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Certified coach Kathleen Muldoon discusses her article, “The cost of presence: a lesson in listening.” She recounts a poignant experience observing a health care student disengaged during a powerful presentation by a …

Love on life support: a powerful reminder from the ICU

Syed Ahmad Moosa, MD

Physician

May 23, 2025

Room 1, ICU — Love on life support

This was a busy Saturday in 2022.

06:45 — I walk into the unit and spot a gray-haired man pacing outside Room 1. Clothes rumpled, air sharp with sweat. The moment he catches my white coat he stops.

“Doctor, any updates for me?”

Through the glass I glimpse his world: a woman in her …

Surviving kidney disease and reforming patient care [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

May 22, 2025

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Health care executive and patient advocate Aja Best discusses her article, “How early CKD diagnosis can save lives: a transplant survivor’s journey.” She shares her harrowing personal experience with a delayed diagnosis …

Why we fear being forgotten more than death itself

Patrick Hudson, MD

Physician

May 22, 2025

It’s not the easiest question to ask aloud—especially in medicine, where we pronounce death but rarely reflect on it.

We chart it. Certify it. Explain it.
But what does it mean to die?

For most of us, the word carries a double weight. It means to stop biologically. To cease. To end.
But it also means to vanish. To be forgotten. To be no longer seen, needed, or named.

As a surgeon, I saw death …

My journey from misdiagnosis to living fully with APBD

Jeff Cooper

Conditions

May 22, 2025

I have always been a performer at heart, starting with theater in school. For 28 years, I was a law professor at Indiana University in Indianapolis, and teaching gave me a captive audience. Beyond the classroom, I have always been passionate about music. I play the guitar and sing, and back in the day I was part of a band. I was also a distance runner and dreamed of completing …

Antimicrobial resistance: a public health crisis that needs your voice [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

May 21, 2025

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Health care public relations leader Melanie Doupé Gaiser discusses her article, “Antimicrobial resistance needs a publicist.” She highlights antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as an urgent and deadly public health crisis that is not …

Why a fourth year will not fix emergency medicine’s real problems

Anna Heffron, MD, PhD & Polly Wiltz, DO

Education

May 21, 2025

The field of emergency medicine (EM) is at a crossroads. Faced with rising burnout, a constantly changing health care landscape, and an evolving trend in unfilled residency positions, the specialty is now grappling with another proposed structural change: A proposed mandatory fourth year. While the idea has been periodically debated over the past two decades, it gained new momentum with proposed changes to the ACGME Program Requirements for Graduate Medical …

Why shared decision-making in medicine often fails

M. Bennet Broner, PhD

Conditions

May 21, 2025

In numerous writings and venues regarding physician practice, the claim is made that “physician education is lacking in nutrition, geriatrics, care for non-cisgender people, relating to patients in general, cultural respect, equitable treatment, etc.” While all of these suggestions have merit, to what extent would they lengthen the already most extended medical school curriculum among developed countries? Or would those who advocate for these additions propose that they replace parts …

Do Jewish students face rising bias in holistic admissions?

Anonymous

Education

May 21, 2025

In the grand theater of American higher education, where the pursuit of knowledge once bowed to the austere discipline of merit, a troubling drama unfolds. The medical school admissions process, now awash in the murky waters of holistic review, risks becoming a stage for ideological caprice rather than a crucible of intellectual rigor. Amid the clamor of the Gaza conflict—a geopolitical tempest that has spilled onto university quads and inflamed …

She wouldn’t move in the womb—then came the rare diagnosis that changed everything

Amber Robertson

Conditions

May 21, 2025

Even before Mia was born, I could sense that something about her was different. With my other children, I felt constant movement during pregnancy, but Mia stayed curled up in one spot and hardly moved at all. When I mentioned this to my obstetrician, he assured me that it was normal. But I was sure that there was something more going on.

As soon as Mia was born, there were signs …

Rethinking medical education for a technology-driven era in health care [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

May 20, 2025

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Medical student Rishma Jivan discusses her article, “Medical curriculum 2.0: Integrating technology and innovation in medical education.” She argues for an urgent update to medical training, embedding technology and innovation as core …

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