Trust in health care AI is a design problem, not a patch

Health Technology
September 4, 2026

A patient sits across from her physician and asks that the AI-assisted reading of her scan not be the final word. She isn’t opposed to technology. She remembers reading about an AI system generating false clinical information at another hospital, and the story stayed with her. Her physician understands the hesitation. He has become more cautious himself after a documentation tool fabricated part of a medication history, an error he …

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Trust in health care AI is a design problem, not a patch

When criticizing another physician harms the patient

Conditions and Diseases
September 4, 2026

Last week, a former patient came back to see me after spending several months with another doctor at a practice where I once worked. During our visit, the patient seemed uneasy and told me that the other doctor had made disparaging comments about me. I did not believe the patient meant to hurt me by sharing this. Still, the words stung. More importantly, the patient had been placed in an …

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When criticizing another physician harms the patient

How does the halo effect in medicine harm patients?

Conditions and Diseases
September 4, 2026

I have spent decades in health care. I know how much physicians rely on clinical judgment, pattern recognition, and experience. Those skills matter, and they also carry a risk: The human brain is constantly filling in gaps, and sometimes the story we create about a patient can become more powerful than the information the patient is trying to give us.

I experienced this recently during a telehealth visit with a physician …

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How does the halo effect in medicine harm patients?

AI in scientific writing: Assistance is not authorship

Health Technology
September 4, 2026

Most scientists I know have several unfinished manuscripts at any given time. I am no exception. Some of mine concern recent work; others are based on research completed years ago, and, in a few cases, decades ago.

I vividly remember a senior colleague at the National Institute of Nutrition who served as my supervisor for a couple of years. He would often show me, with great enthusiasm, a stack of over …

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AI in scientific writing: Assistance is not authorship

Healing a divided nation begins in a psychiatrist’s office

Physician
September 4, 2026

In the months since the United States marked its 250th anniversary, I find myself sitting in a unique vantage point. As a psychiatrist, my office acts as a microcosm of the American experience. Behind closed doors, the broad and often raucous headlines of our national discourse distill into the visceral, unfiltered reality of individual human experience. From this front-row seat, I witness our collective anxieties, our daily pains, and our …

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Healing a divided nation begins in a psychiatrist’s office

7 rules for how physicians should use AI responsibly

Health Technology
September 4, 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering medicine faster than many physicians expected. It is already helping draft notes, summarize records, answer patient questions, support imaging workflows, and organize clinical data. Some tools are useful. Some are premature. Many are somewhere in between.

The question for physicians is no longer whether AI will appear in clinical care. It already has. The real question is how to use it without giving away the judgment …

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7 rules for how physicians should use AI responsibly

Pre-med regret and the comedian who chose medicine anyway

Physician
September 4, 2026

“Don’t tell my parents,” Saru whispered as she leaned into my ear as if she was going to tell me her most precious secret. “But what I really want to do is be a stand-up comedian.”

It was the usual scene at a Nepali party. Women were dressed in the latest fashionable saris. Men, at different levels of intoxication, were huddled around laughing at a story. Loud Nepali music blared while …

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Pre-med regret and the comedian who chose medicine anyway

Ketamine for depression: what actually makes it dangerous [PODCAST]

Podcast
September 3, 2026
YouTube video

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

Ketamine made headlines for the wrong reasons, and people who could be helped by it are staying away. Jim Ellwood is an anesthesiologist who has given ketamine in the operating room and taken …

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Ketamine for depression: what actually makes it dangerous [PODCAST]

A national medical license would cut administrative burden

Physician
September 3, 2026

Lawyers have to know the laws of the state where they practice. Physicians largely do not. Medical norms, ethics, and morals are close to universal, which means physician practice could in principle be governed by universal law. There are exceptions. Contraception is one, where even clinical practice is governed by state-specific law.

The broader pattern is stranger than the exceptions. Neither lawyers nor physicians should have to acclimatize to institutional norms …

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A national medical license would cut administrative burden

Gait as a vital sign: What a 20-second video reveals

Conditions and Diseases
September 3, 2026

Medicine has become remarkably sophisticated at measuring the human body. We measure blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, oxygen saturation, laboratory values, imaging findings, and increasingly complex biomarkers. Yet one of the richest sources of information about a patient’s functional health may pass directly in front of us every day without being systematically captured:

How the patient walks.

I believe a brief gait video deserves consideration as a functional vital sign. A 10- …

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Gait as a vital sign: What a 20-second video reveals

Clinical trial navigation is a clinical access problem

Physician
September 3, 2026

Clinical trial enrollment in rare cancers remains stubbornly low. In T-cell lymphomas, a heterogeneous group of over a dozen distinct subtypes affecting roughly 9,000 new patients annually in the United States, fewer than 7 percent of eligible patients participate in clinical trials. This statistic has persisted for decades despite growing recognition of the problem by professional societies, advocacy organizations, and regulatory agencies.

The conventional explanation focuses on awareness. Patients don’t know …

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Clinical trial navigation is a clinical access problem

When the food noise stops, the identity crisis begins

Conditions and Diseases
September 3, 2026

For nine months, I did not stand on a scale. I did not look at myself in a full-length mirror. I told myself I was busy. The truth was that I was frightened of what I might see.

I had reached my target weight, and my BMI had fallen below the range my prescriber and I intended. We discussed reducing my dose. Clinically, it was reasonable. Psychologically, it felt like a …

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When the food noise stops, the identity crisis begins

Augmented intelligence is the model education needs

Health Technology
September 3, 2026

Harvard’s decision to dismantle its Writing Center as an independent entity and to lay off its longtime director, Jane Rosenzweig, has sparked an unusual level of anger. Students, faculty, former tutors, and alums have protested a decision that might otherwise have slipped into the fog of administrative restructuring.

The controversy is about more than a single employee or even a single writing center. It raises a much larger question: What …

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Augmented intelligence is the model education needs

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Epinephrine on airplanes should not depend on the airline

Conditions and Diseases
September 3, 2026

“Is there a doctor or medical professional on board?” Answer that call and you may be treating anaphylaxis in a cramped cabin, mid-turbulence, with no medical history, no weight, no records, and no emergency department nearby. You should be able to assume one thing: that the aircraft’s medical kit holds the right medication, in a usable form, at the right dose. Under a new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposal, that …

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Epinephrine on airplanes should not depend on the airline

The 2026 7-OH ban will hit dependent users the hardest

Medications
September 3, 2026

“If you violate our rule, we are going to make you pay for it. You could be looking at up to 30-year prison sentences, and believe me, we will be looking to make some examples of bad actors.”

With these words, Florida’s attorney general announced the state’s June 2026 scheduling of 7-hydroxymitragynine (a short-acting psychoactive agent that shares common properties with both opioids and stimulants) and other concentrated derivatives of …

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The 2026 7-OH ban will hit dependent users the hardest

When policy erased my post-operative pain control

Physician
September 3, 2026

The day I met my own system from the wrong side of the bed

I’ve spent a career on the clinician side of the bed: explaining procedures, reassuring families, and signing orders that were supposed to make pain tolerable and recovery humane. Then I had shoulder surgery in Florida.

I went in with a regional block, a plan, and the quiet confidence of someone with a high pain tolerance. Physical therapists have …

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When policy erased my post-operative pain control

A frivolous malpractice lawsuit still raises your premium

Physician
September 3, 2026

There are commercials on TV by prominent plaintiff personal injury law firms advertising for clients. One promotes “If we don’t win, you don’t pay.” Another promotes the notion that anyone who owns a phone already has a lawyer. Still others promote the types of injuries that can be monetized, but never mention medical malpractice.

All imply that a contingency fee totally forgives clients of all legal transaction costs. All imply a …

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A frivolous malpractice lawsuit still raises your premium

Are opioid prescribing rates really driving overdoses?

Medications
September 3, 2026

There very well may have been times throughout our country’s history where opioids have been overprescribed, such as the Civil War era and 2000 to 2010. Of course, determining whether opioid prescribing is actually excessive requires one to quantify an association of opioid prescription rates with some relevant population characteristic (e.g., opioid overdoses per capita). Failing to consider the relationship between opioid prescription rates and any other population characteristic whatsoever …

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Are opioid prescribing rates really driving overdoses?

When AI misses a diagnosis, the cardiologist signs alone

Conditions and Diseases
September 3, 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly reshaped cardiovascular imaging, particularly echocardiography, where machine learning algorithms now assist in image acquisition, chamber quantification, valvular assessment, strain analysis, and diagnostic interpretation. While these technologies promise enhanced efficiency and diagnostic accuracy, they also introduce an unresolved legal dilemma: When AI contributes to a missed diagnosis, who bears responsibility? Traditional malpractice principles designate the interpreting cardiologist as the primary legal decision-maker. Yet these doctrines evolved …

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When AI misses a diagnosis, the cardiologist signs alone

When you have five doctors and no one is directing your care [PODCAST]

Podcast
September 2, 2026
YouTube video

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

You can have five doctors and still have no one actually in charge of your care. That gap is where patients get lost. In this episode, retired surgeon and patient advocate Alan P. …

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When you have five doctors and no one is directing your care [PODCAST]

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