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Academic medical centers under threat: the impact of funding cuts

Policy

April 5, 2025

A familiar ding echoes from blue scrub pants. My conditioned frontal cortex reflexively shoots my hand to the back pocket. Fingers encircle a black smartphone. A ricochet of notification vibration still tickles my right buttock. Several semi-autonomous thumb swipes ensue. The joy of Microsoft Outlook’s blue glow reveals a new email—one of nearly a hundred emails jostling for self-importance that day. But this one is different. The ominous phrase “Effective …

C. Everett Koop meets the giants of pediatric surgery: Ladd and Gross

Nigel Cameron, PhD

Physician

April 5, 2025

An excerpt from Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General.

In spring of 1946 the young Koop was sent to Boston for several months to spend time with the giants of the nascent field of pediatric surgery, William E. Ladd (1880–1967), and his trainee and successor Robert Gross (1905–1988). In his survey of the history of the discipline, Judson Randolph …

Alzheimer’s impact on the young should be an open book

Carol Steinberg

Conditions

April 5, 2025

It has long been said that Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementia (ADRD), like some other conditions, is a disease of the family. The ramifications of the disease extend well beyond the periphery of the person with cognitive decline to other family members, such as parents, adult children and siblings, and children under 18.

Yet, the latter, the most vulnerable, are often left in the dark.

Whether young children are living with …

7 proven strategies to beat test anxiety and ace the USMLE

Brett Doliner, MD and Alyssa Ehrlich, MD

Education

April 5, 2025

Test anxiety is common among medical students, especially with the high-stakes USMLE. While some anxiety can drive performance, too much can spiral into paralyzing “what-ifs.” Here’s how to turn anxiety into an ally and perform at your best on exam day:

1. Recognize the role of anxiety. Accept that a certain level of anxiety can be a motivating force. It keeps you alert, focused, and prepared to tackle the task ahead. …

How to reduce diagnostic error in the emergency department [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 4, 2025

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

Health care executives Susan L. Montminy and Marlene Icenhower discuss their article, “Solving a hidden challenge: 10 tips to reduce diagnostic error in the emergency department.” Susan and Marlene explore the complex, …

Antimicrobial resistance needs a publicist

Melanie Doupé Gaiser, PhD, MPH

Conditions

April 4, 2025

The mass layoffs at federal health agencies, combined with the recent flurry of federal government announcements—paused communications, stop-work orders, and canceled meetings—have the health care and life sciences communities on edge. One announcement I found quite concerning was the cancellation of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria meeting scheduled for January 28. This was supposed to be a gathering of experts focused on the growing threat of antimicrobial …

Physician wellness is a strategic imperative—not a moral crusade

Jessie Mahoney, MD

Physician

April 4, 2025

To advocate effectively for physician well-being, we must be strategic rather than reactive.

In today’s ever-evolving health care landscape, transformation is not driven by passion alone but by thoughtful alignment with the priorities of those who shape the system.

It is tempting to seek fairness, to call out what is wrong, and to lament the losses inherent in modern medicine.

Culture and systemic change will not come from complaining; it will come from …

Trusting the right doctor: a lesson in humility and expertise

Dr. Damane Zehra

Physician

April 4, 2025

A few days ago, a teacher of mine who taught me Urdu in school contacted me after years. I remember her well; she was a very kind lady who cared for me a lot. I was one of her favorite students. At that time, she was married and had a daughter who was a toddler.

During a phone call, she told me that she had been experiencing a high-grade …

The medical malpractice system is broken: Who really benefits?

Howard Smith, MD

Physician

April 4, 2025

Today, a doctor’s chance of being sued for medical malpractice is 8.5 percent per year. The chance that the lawsuit is frivolous, meaning the alleged injury is from a random error of nature and not from an accidental medical error, is 66.6 percent.

Complications are inevitable. Medical errors occur during medical interventions. So do random errors of nature. At first glance, an error of …

Starting a pediatric critical care transport program from scratch [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 3, 2025

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

Pediatric critical care physician Kyle Willsey discusses his article, “When every second counts: the evolving challenges of pediatric transport.” He shares the high-stakes realities of transporting critically ill children, from his experience …

The unspoken weight of words: reflections on a Vietnamese patient’s final choices

Thanh Phuong Nguyen

Conditions

April 3, 2025

When the patient arrived by ambulance, he was frail, elderly, and alone in a hospital that spoke a language he could not understand. He had been transferred from a neighboring hospital across state lines due to concerns of malnutrition and pain. The initial CT scans were alarming—multiple lung masses, highly concerning for metastatic cancer. Yet, despite the grim prognosis, there were still barriers to giving him a definitive diagnosis, and …

I almost left health care: my nurse practitioner burnout story

Erica Dorn, FNP

Conditions

April 3, 2025

My journey in nursing has led me to experiences and insights I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

I declared nursing as my major because I was passionate about making a difference in patients’ lives. I envisioned sitting by patients’ bedsides, holding their hands, and providing comfort in their moments of need. I dreamed of showing up every day to make a meaningful impact.

A retired ICU nurse’s brunch conversation sparks a life-changing moment

Debbie Moore-Black, RN

Conditions

April 3, 2025

We were a team. Always had been. Always would be. We defended each other, protected each other—from management, from nurse bullies, from the cruel ICU doctors who thought they ruled the world. Back in the day, we had our own kind of “therapy sessions”—long talks over coffee, unloading the weight of twelve-hour shifts, of lives saved and lost, of the battles fought in the trenches of critical care. But life …

Cancer treatment and sexual health: the conversation we need to have

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian

Conditions

April 3, 2025

When we think of cancer treatment, we often focus on the immediate goals: Shrinking tumors, stopping the spread of the disease, and ultimately aiming for a cure. What doesn’t get as much attention, but is just as important, is how cancer treatments can affect a patient’s sexual health and reproductive future.

Many cancer patients, particularly younger ones, are often left in the dark about how their treatment could impact their sexual …

Medicine’s mental health crisis: Why the system is failing us

Robert C. Smith, MD

Conditions

April 3, 2025

An excerpt from Has Medicine Lost Its Mind?: Why Our Mental Health System Is Failing Us and What Should Be Done to Cure It.

One of society’s great issues is who decides what science does—the public or science. For example, the populace has taken control and been clear that it does not want science to create human beings in a laboratory or construct computers that run the world. Once …

How endometriosis affects fertility and what you can do [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 2, 2025

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

Fertility specialist Oluyemisi Famuyiwa discusses her article, “Endometriosis and fertility: What every woman should know.” She explores how endometriosis, an inflammatory condition affecting 10 percent of reproductive-age women, disrupts fertility through pelvic …

How hospitals are quietly taking control of physicians

Allan Dobzyniak, MD

Physician

April 2, 2025

Doctor, if you have recently had occasion to be granted a visit with upper hospital management in the plush executive suite, most surely it was you who stood out quite conspicuously. Being greeted, hopefully politely, by one of the administrative secretaries, you were asked to be seated and wait along with others—consultants, lower-level management, salesmen, business associates, insurance executives, and maybe even golf buddies. Notable was that you, the physician, …

10 ways health care might be killing you (and what you can do about it)

Tomi Mitchell, MD

Physician

April 2, 2025

Health care is meant to heal, but what if it’s quietly doing the opposite? While we rely on medical professionals, hospitals, and treatments to keep us healthy, the system has hidden dangers that can put lives at risk. For every life saved, countless others are harmed due to systemic failures, personal oversight, or deep-rooted inequities.

This article will examine ten critical reasons why health care can become deadly …

Through the lens of COVID: a radiologic technologist’s story

Kyle Wells, RT

Conditions

April 2, 2025

I’ve been an X-ray and CT technologist for almost ten years, and I’ve always taken pride in my work. But nothing could have prepared me—or any of us—for what the COVID-19 pandemic brought. It wasn’t just the virus itself; it was the way it exposed the cracks in our health care system, the way it pushed us all to our limits, and the way it changed how we saw our …

The unstoppable rise of health care administrators: a cautionary song

Alfred J. Padilla, MD

Physician

April 2, 2025

April 23, 2025, is Administrative Professionals Day!

Administrators, especially in health care, are a rapidly growing demographic who believe they are unsung heroes deserving of recognition. In an attempt to remedy this situation, I submit for your consideration the following song, to the tune of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall:

One administrator is all, he runs the hospital.
Let’s open the door, and …