KevinMD.com

March 18, 2026Mar 18, 2026

Every spring, millions of families across Chinese communities around the world travel back to their hometowns for Qingming Festival, often translated as "Tomb-Sweeping Day." It is a centuries-old tradition of honoring ancestors. Highways fill with traffic. Families gather at gravesites…

Every spring, millions of families across Chinese communities around the world travel back to their hometowns for Qingming Festival, often translated as “Tomb-Sweeping Day.” It is a centuries-old tradition of honoring ancestors. Highways fill with traffic. Families gather at gravesites to clean tombstones, burn incense, and leave offerings of food. On the surface, Qingming is about remembering the dead. But in many homes, the holiday quietly exposes a different reality: …

Physician voices

Why the Oregon National Primate Research Center is shutting down

Marge Peppercorn, MD

March 18, 2026Mar 18, 2026

Update from Oregon Health & Science University: Oregon Health & Science University clarifies that no decisions have been made about the Oregon National Primate Center at OHSU. In February, the OHSU Board of Directors authorized the university president to enter…

Update from Oregon Health & Science University:

Oregon Health & Science University clarifies that no decisions have been made about the Oregon National Primate Center at OHSU.

In February, the OHSU Board of Directors authorized the university president to enter discussions with the National Institutes of Health about the possibility of transitioning the ONPRC to a primate sanctuary.

The board passed a resolution to begin a six-month timeframe for the parties to develop …

Physician voices

Why physicians must lead payment tariff negotiations

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

March 18, 2026Mar 18, 2026

Many physicians see fee schedules, payment rates, billing codes, and pension negotiations as administrative work best left to a few elected representatives, policy experts, or government staff. However, these physician payment tariff negotiations shape how care is delivered, how practices remain viable, how new services are recognized, and how the profession sustains itself over time. They involve fee codes, billing rules, payment rates, service descriptions, pensions, compensation models, and allocation …

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Conditions and diseases

ADHD in physicians: Why medical training punishes neurodiversity

Samantha Leite, MD

March 18, 2026Mar 18, 2026

I was halfway through my first year of OB-GYN residency when I learned that my brain had been working against me my entire life. By then, I had passed licensing exams, matched into a surgical specialty, and learned how to function convincingly while exhausted. What I had not learned, and what medicine never taught me, was how to recognize when “high functioning” was actually quiet suffering. And that distinction matters, …

Physician voices

The hidden math behind physician hiring costs and recruitment

Timothy Lesaca, MD

March 18, 2026Mar 18, 2026

Most physicians know what they earn. Far fewer know what it costs to hire them or replace them. A colleague once told me in frustration, "It takes me two years to get my money back on a new hire." I…

Most physicians know what they earn. Far fewer know what it costs to hire them or replace them. A colleague once told me in frustration, “It takes me two years to get my money back on a new hire.” I understood the frustration, but not the math. I thought of hiring the way many physicians do: salary, benefits, maybe a signing bonus. It seemed straightforward. It is not. Hiring a …

Physician voices

Primary care compensation models: Why wRVUs are obsolete

Yul Ejnes, MD

March 18, 2026Mar 18, 2026

It is time to dethrone the office visit as the king of primary care physician compensation and how the work of a primary care physician is defined. Several months ago, a reporter asked me how many patients I see in…

It is time to dethrone the office visit as the king of primary care physician compensation and how the work of a primary care physician is defined.

Several months ago, a reporter asked me how many patients I see in a typical day. I told her that the question should not be how many patients I see each day, but how many patients I take care of each day, a number …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Shift from universal to optional vaccination risks normalizing preventable disease [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

Medical student Umayr R. Shaikh discusses his article "The impact of CDC’s new childhood immunization guidance." Umayr argues that recent CDC changes, moving vaccines like flu, Hep B, and meningococcal from universal recommendation to shared decision making, risk normalizing preventable…

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Medical student Umayr R. Shaikh discusses his article “The impact of CDC’s new childhood immunization guidance.” Umayr argues that recent CDC changes, moving vaccines like flu, Hep B, and meningococcal from universal recommendation to shared decision making, risk normalizing preventable illness. He highlights how his medical training now focuses on …

Physician voices

Why physicians are absorbing risk, not leading

Gus W. Krucke, MD

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

Physicians are often described as leaders of the health care team. The language shifts, quarterback, captain, final decision-maker, but the implication is constant: someone is clearly in charge. At the bedside, the reality feels more complicated. In every functioning system,…

In every functioning system, there is a final point of responsibility, the person who answers when outcomes are poor. In medicine, that person remains the physician. We sign the charts. We carry the malpractice risk. …

Physician voices

The Schism of Time: Bridging the generational gap in the workplace

Seleipiri Akobo, MD, MPH, MBA

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

In our modern professional landscape, we are witnessing a phenomenon I call the Schism of Time. It is not just a gap in age; it is a fundamental difference in how we perceive value, and "spend" the hours of our…

As technology accelerates, the cadence of our work shifts. We see a friction between the “Deep Time” often championed by seasoned leaders, rooted in legacy, patience, and incremental growth, and …

Medical education

What Match Day teaches us about unexpected life paths

Kathleen Muldoon, PhD

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

There are moments in life when everything you imagined for yourself fits inside a single envelope. This week, every fourth-year medical student in the United States will open the same one at the same moment. Some people scream. Some people cry. And a few people quietly realize their life just went somewhere they never planned to go. Match Day is the moment medical students learn where their futures begin. Last …

Conditions and diseases

The biological cost of night-shift work on circadian rhythms

Chinyelu E. Oraedu, MD

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

"Try not to work the night shift if you can." Many physicians have said this to patients. Some have said it to colleagues. Often, we say it because we understand the science: Working through the night comes at a physiologic…

“Try not to work the night shift if you can.” Many physicians have said this to patients. Some have said it to colleagues. Often, we say it because we understand the science: Working through the night comes at a physiologic cost. Night-shift work is associated with weight gain, chronic fatigue, disrupted sleep, insulin resistance, and increased long-term risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Circadian disruption affects …

Physician voices

Chronic pain management: Balancing relief and regulation

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

As a pain physician with over 20 years of experience treating patients with chronic pain, I hear the same plea almost every day: "Doctor, it hurts, please help." As an author and patient advocate, I wanted to verbalize the daily…

As a pain physician with over 20 years of experience treating patients with chronic pain, I hear the same plea almost every day: “Doctor, it hurts, please help.”

As an author and patient advocate, I wanted to verbalize the daily reality of chronic pain.

Chronic pain affects an estimated 24.3 percent of U.S. adults (approximately 60 million people) as of 2023, with 8.5 percent (about 21 million) experiencing high-impact chronic pain that …

Physician voices

Why modern medicine feels more like a bureaucracy than a profession

Jeffrey Junig, MD, PhD

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

I walked through a beautiful hallway the other day, the kind hospitals and clinics seem to favor now, polished floors, warm lighting, and old oak paneling on the walls. It looked less like a medical building and more like the lobby of a boutique hotel. At the end of the hallway sat a receptionist who was having a bad day. Or maybe she was just doing her job. She glanced …

Health technology

AI agents in health care: What they say when we aren’t listening

Alp Köksal

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

When artificial intelligence systems talk to us, we tend to focus on what they can do for patients, clinicians, and the health care system. But what happens when they start talking to each other about us? Earlier this year, a…

Earlier this year, a new platform called Moltbook, essentially Reddit for AI agents, launched with hundreds of thousands of autonomous “moltbots” posting (on any topic), debating, and upvoting without any human participation. The platform has …

Drugs and prescribing

Huntington’s disease gene therapy: FDA reversal delays AMT-130

Meghan Johnston, MPH

March 17, 2026Mar 17, 2026

At the end of September 2025, a gene therapy company released results from a clinical trial showing that a breakthrough procedure reduced the progression of Huntington’s symptoms by 75 percent over three years. Researchers collected data from 12 participants who…

The company’s drug, AMT-130, shows unprecedented outcomes, so why is the FDA slowing …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Emergency nurses struggle to turn off survival mode after the pandemic [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

March 16, 2026Mar 16, 2026

Retired emergency department nurse Amy Dinaburg discusses her article "Lowercase PTSD: Why emergency staff are still hypervigilant." Amy reflects on the relentless pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic where nurses were forced to override their nervous systems to keep patients alive.…

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Retired emergency department nurse Amy Dinaburg discusses her article “Lowercase PTSD: Why emergency staff are still hypervigilant.” Amy reflects on the relentless pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic where nurses were forced to override their nervous systems to keep patients alive. She describes the concept of “Lowercase PTSD” as the result …

Conditions and diseases

Why perfectionism in medicine leads to moral injury

Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD

March 16, 2026Mar 16, 2026

In the hallowed halls of medical school, we are often screened for traits that make the "ideal doctor": high empathy, meticulous perfectionism, and a profound sense of duty. We are the fixers, the ones who find deep meaning in the…

In the hallowed halls of medical school, we are often screened for traits that make the “ideal doctor”: high empathy, meticulous perfectionism, and a profound sense of duty. We are the fixers, the ones who find deep meaning in the intersubjective space between healer and patient. Yet, there is a shadow side to this personality architecture that no one talks about, an underlying proclivity toward rejection sensitivity.

The very traits that …

Conditions and diseases

Adult disability care transition: Why medicine must grow up

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

March 16, 2026Mar 16, 2026

"Let’s Fly." Captain Burnham’s words on the USS Discovery were more than a command. They were a declaration of trust, of forward motion, of refusing paralysis. That is the question before us now: What happens when children with disabilities grow…

“Let’s Fly.” Captain Burnham’s words on the USS Discovery were more than a command. They were a declaration of trust, of forward motion, of refusing paralysis.

That is the question before us now: What happens when children with disabilities grow up?

For decades, pediatrics treated disability as a childhood condition. The grant language, the fellowship training, the systems of care, all built on the assumption that disability ends at eighteen. But children …

Health technology

The hidden risks and rewards of AI scribes in medicine

Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA

March 16, 2026Mar 16, 2026

For decades physicians have dreamed of a simple technological solution to one of modern medicine's most corrosive burdens: documentation. The electronic health record promised efficiency but delivered something quite different: extra burden. Physicians now spend hours each evening completing notes,…

For decades physicians have dreamed of a simple technological solution to one of modern medicine’s most corrosive burdens: documentation. The electronic health record promised efficiency but delivered something quite different: extra burden. Physicians now spend hours each evening completing notes, clicking boxes, and reconciling fields, what has become known as “pajama time.” The keyboard has often replaced eye contact. The screen has displaced the patient. Ambient AI scribes arrived with …

Conditions and diseases

How the microvasculature drives the human aging process

Kenneth Ro, MD

March 16, 2026Mar 16, 2026

For years we have searched for the causes of aging inside the cell. Researchers study mitochondrial dysfunction, DNA damage, and the accumulation of senescent cells. But the real bottleneck in aging may not lie inside the cell at all. It may lie in the system that keeps those cells alive. During my years working in emergency medicine, I often saw patients whose blocked coronary arteries had been successfully opened during …

Real physician voices, twice a week

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