As a quadruple board-certified physician and a patient with a complex autoimmune disease, I live on both sides of the examination table. My professional life is about finding answers; my personal life has been about the agony of waiting for them.
This dual perspective makes it impossible to ignore a systemic problem in modern medicine: A class of diagnoses that live in the shadows. Seronegative Sjögren’s, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), …
Most people think of high blood pressure as a silent threat to the heart. But it’s time we start talking about another organ it quietly destroys: the kidneys.
As a public health researcher and clinician, I have seen how chronic kidney disease (CKD) creeps in unnoticed—especially among older adults—and how hypertension is often the unspoken culprit. Despite being preventable and treatable in its early stages, CKD remains a major cause of …
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Nationally recognized psychiatrist, internist, and addiction medicine specialist Muhamad Aly Rifai discusses his article, “How deep transcranial magnetic stimulation is transforming mental health care.” He shares his experience with deep TMS (dTMS), …
We thought we had moved on from diseases like rubella. But as measles makes a comeback, rubella may not be far behind, and this time, it could harm the next generation before it’s even born. Most people today have never seen a baby born with congenital rubella syndrome, a condition that causes blindness, deafness, heart defects, and developmental delays. That’s not because it stopped happening—it’s because vaccination kept rubella from …
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 …
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 …
Every ED has patients who become part of the landscape. They come in once or twice a week, for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes they have chronic medical conditions they are unable to manage. Sometimes they are on the outskirts of society due to mental health or substance abuse disorders. The ER promises a few hours of sleep in a safe place and a meal. I formed an uneasy alliance …
Walk into any emergency room across the country and you’ll see familiar scenes: crowded waiting rooms, overstretched resources, and overworked physicians balancing patient care with substantial administrative burdens. Against this backdrop, physician burnout remains unacceptably high (48.2 percent of physicians), with clerical duties cited as the most common cause. Many physicians also spend significant time after working hours catching up on …
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Cardiologist and author Eric Topol discusses his article, “What super agers can teach us about longevity and health span,” which is an excerpt from his new book, Read more…
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:
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 …
An excerpt from Tales from the Trenches: A life in Primary Care.
For nearly four decades in medical practice, I’ve been asked countless times about the best supplements or vitamins for improving health. Despite widespread hopes that pills can unlock vitality and longevity, the truth is less glamorous and far more powerful: The single best prescription for health is regular physical activity. Exercise, not supplements or medications, is the most …
We often speak of weight as a matter of simple math—calories in, calories out. But the body doesn’t work like an equation when it’s grieving or under chronic stress. It behaves more like a survivor, clinging tightly to resources in the face of perceived danger. And in that physiological equation, cortisol—our primary stress hormone—plays a central role.
The cortisol connection
Cortisol is released by the adrenal glands in response to stress through …
ADVERTISEMENT
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 …
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Cardiologist Lauren Weber and critical care physician Jess Bunin, co-founders of All Levels Leadership, discuss their article, “Not all heroes wear capes: Sometimes they just speak up in meetings.” They reframe medical …
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 …
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 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 …
Locums can be a very challenging space, at least for anesthesiologists. Environments are frequently disrupted. There is often animosity between clinicians coping long-term with turmoil and inadequate staffing, and the temporary locums who fill a gap and are often paid substantially more for their intrusion. In anesthesia, the quality of the relationship between clinician and the total environment is essential. This includes nuances of the culture, scheduling structure and expectations, …
Imagine going to a restaurant where, instead of being charged separately for your appetizer, main course, and dessert, you pay a fixed price for the entire meal. That’s the idea behind a bundled payment plan in health care. Instead of billing patients and insurers for every individual test, treatment, or doctor’s visit during a medical episode—like a knee replacement—providers receive a single, comprehensive payment for all services related to a …
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
