KevinMD.com

September 9, 2026Sep 9, 2026

I think of "Tim" often. He was a coworker, dedicated to his job as a staff member and doing his best on behalf of our medical students, staff, and faculty. He was smart, funny, insightful, and always helpful. Having no…

I think of “Tim” often. He was a coworker, dedicated to his job as a staff member and doing his best on behalf of our medical students, staff, and faculty. He was smart, funny, insightful, and always helpful. Having no …

Tech

Clinical judgment matters more in the age of AI

Dr. Adam Widdison

September 9, 2026Sep 9, 2026

The more capable AI becomes at answering clinical questions, the more important it is to ask whether we are asking the right questions. Medicine is not becoming less human; if anything, it is becoming more dependent on the human qualities it has always needed: judgment, responsibility, and the ability to act with care amid uncertainty. AI may change how information is delivered, but it does not decide what matters. That …

Policy

Local news and public health: the segment viewers missed

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

September 9, 2026Sep 9, 2026

Local news has always been a mirror: imperfect, sometimes distorted, but still a reflection of what a community believes matters. In Jacksonville, that mirror has become increasingly fogged. Last night, it reflected almost nothing of public value. For nearly twenty…

For nearly twenty minutes, English-speaking viewers watched the demolition of an empty indoor mall, a structure long abandoned except for a megachurch occupying the old Belk store. The anchors narrated the fall of drywall, …

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Physicians

Hiring medical office staff who actually follow through

Neil Baum, MD

September 9, 2026Sep 9, 2026

There are two types of employees: the go-getters and the gunnas. The go-getters are those who have a clear vision of setting out to do something, giving it their all, and accomplishing it. They don’t need to be monitored. They are the first to arrive for a meeting or at work and the last to leave at the end of the day. They are self-starters and serve as role models …

Podcast

Why value-based care hasn’t lowered your medical bills [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

Everyone agrees health care should reward better outcomes at lower cost. So why hasn't it happened? The answer isn't payment models or policy. It comes down to the everyday choices individual clinicians make, and whether anyone can actually see them.…

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Everyone agrees health care should reward better outcomes at lower cost. So why hasn’t it happened? The answer isn’t payment models or policy. It comes down to the everyday choices individual clinicians make, and whether anyone can actually see them. Jeanne Cohen, a health care analytics founder and CEO, argues that …

Policy

Why a broken health care system keeps getting worse

Peter R. Kowey, MD

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

"We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering." Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Over the course of my career,…

“We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Over the course of my career, I have witnessed an inexorable decline in the quality of medical care that we, as physicians, render to our patients. There is a myriad of reasons for this sad development, some …

Conditions

Diagnosing psychosis starts with process, not content

Stacy Stojakovic, PA-C

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

A patient tells you that her deceased grandmother still visits her in dreams. Another believes that unseen spiritual forces influence his health. A third insists the government has implanted a device that broadcasts his thoughts. Which patient is psychotic? The…

Which patient is psychotic? The answer is that you don’t know. At least not yet.

One of the most common misconceptions about psychiatry is that delusions are simply “false beliefs.” In reality, experienced clinicians rarely diagnose psychosis …

Tech

Patient trust in AI is not proof the advice is right

Timothy Lesaca, MD

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

"Can you make this sound less demanding?" A patient types the question into a chatbot while trying to write a message to her doctor. She wants to ask why a test was ordered and whether she should be worried, but…

“Can you make this sound less demanding?” A patient types the question into a chatbot while trying to write a message to her doctor. She wants to ask why a test was ordered and whether she should be worried, but she does not want to come across as difficult. She describes the appointment. Then she adds what she did not say at the time: that she left frightened, has been …

Conditions

Breast implant removal leaves patients paying 3 times

Martha Rosenberg

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

Former cosmetic surgeon Robert Yoho, MD, after retiring from medical practice in 2019, became an author and health care whistleblower and recently addressed the "explant" trend in which breast implants are surgically removed. According to the American Society of Plastic…

Former cosmetic surgeon Robert Yoho, MD, after retiring from medical practice in 2019, became an author and health care whistleblower and recently addressed the “explant” trend in which breast implants are surgically removed. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 306,196 women bought breast augmentation in 2024. In 2021, the FDA added a boxed warning to implants cautioning that they are linked to breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma …

Conditions

Medical gaslighting delayed my diagnosis by 20 years

Dr. Mogeshni Govender

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

This is dedicated to my fellow Zebras. I hear you. I see you. This is not an easy story to share, but I want to do so in the hope of bringing greater visibility to conditions that are often overlooked…

This is dedicated to my fellow Zebras. I hear you. I see you.

This is not an easy story to share, but I want to do so in the hope of bringing greater visibility to conditions that are often overlooked and poorly understood. This reflection explores my experience as both a patient and doctor navigating hypermobility and its associated conditions. My aim is to help reduce delays in diagnosis, encourage clinicians …

Finance

Credit balances in medical practices have a deadline

GetPracticeHelp

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

Most independent practices know their accounts receivable to the dollar. Far fewer can say what their credit balances total, how old the oldest one is, or who is supposed to be doing something about them. A credit balance sits in the practice management system as a negative number on a patient or payer account, it rarely triggers an alert, and it quietly inflates the bank balance the owner looks at …

Tech

Why prompt engineering in medicine beats picking a model

Vinson James, MD

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

It was a quiet Sunday morning, coffee on the desk, and I was doing what most residents do at some point in their training: grinding through multiple-choice questions (MCQs) for my in-training exam. I had been using large language models (LLMs) as study partners for weeks. ChatGPT to walk through a tricky electrolyte case. Gemini for a second opinion on a renal physiology question I couldn’t square. DeepSeek when I …

Patients

Book publishing scams took $7,500 from me by wire transfer

Richard A. Lawhern, PhD

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

About a year ago, KevinMD published an article that I wrote about avoiding online scams when one is highly visible in media as a patient advocate. During that year, I've come to recognize that I should have taken more of…

About a year ago, KevinMD published an article that I wrote about avoiding online scams when one is highly visible in media as a patient advocate. During that year, I’ve come to recognize that I should have taken more of my own advice on the subject.

I have also learned that the technology supporting online criminals has expanded at a far faster rate than I’d anticipated. AI-based search engines can …

Physicians

Leaving clinical medicine when doing right became a battle

Prianca Naik, MD

September 8, 2026Sep 8, 2026

Make the world a better place strobed through my mind as I trudged anxiously to my organic chemistry final exam after an all-night study session and a few NoDoz capsules. Unprepared and scared, I hoped for the best, as I took yet another exam on material which failed to come easily. Spanish Lit, Writing, and even Calculus clicked in my brain readily, but I had decided to mimic my mother’s …

Podcast

Why weak branding is costing private practices patients and talent [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

September 7, 2026Sep 7, 2026

Patients now choose doctors the way they shop for everything else, judging your practice online before they walk in. Ashley Gay, a branding expert, argues that a strong brand is not about ego but about earning trust, and that physicians…

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Policy

Physician advocacy is a duty, not a political choice

Sean Gallagher, MD

September 7, 2026Sep 7, 2026

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey was more than just a tale about a man's long journey home. It is ultimately a warning about what happens when society abandons its shared obligations. I found his modern interpretation helpful for framing a recent…

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey was more than just a tale about a man’s long journey home. It is ultimately a warning about what happens when society abandons its shared obligations. I found his modern interpretation helpful for framing a recent shift in attitudes toward public health and medicine.

In the film, the actions of the Greeks at Troy violated one of their wider society’s most foundational social norms: Zeus’ Law. It …

Physicians

How to stop asking for permission and decide for yourself

Lauren Fine, MD

September 7, 2026Sep 7, 2026

When I was deciding whether to leave full-time clinical medicine, I asked my most trusted colleagues what they thought. Most of them did not understand why I would leave something I had worked so hard to build. Others suggested I not make a change so early in my career. My family did not understand the new job either, not even my husband. In the end I did it anyway.

After asking …

Conditions

Fragmented care leaves patients holding the whole picture

Kara Wada, MD

September 7, 2026Sep 7, 2026

I've been thinking a lot about what we are losing in modern medicine. We were taught to treat the patient, not just the labs. To listen. To notice patterns. To pay attention when something doesn't quite fit. To ask, "What…

I’ve been thinking a lot about what we are losing in modern medicine. We were taught to treat the patient, not just the labs. To listen. To notice patterns. To pay attention when something doesn’t quite fit. To ask, “What am I missing?”

Angus Fletcher, a professor of story science at Ohio State’s Project Narrative, calls this primal intelligence. He names four capacities: intuition, imagination, emotion, and common sense.

In medicine, we …

Conditions

Dialysis access and heart failure need one care plan

Mohamad A. Hussain, MD, PhD

September 7, 2026Sep 7, 2026

For decades, vascular care has focused on solving problems within the circulatory system. When an artery narrows, we restore blood flow. When a patient requires dialysis, we create reliable vascular access. These interventions are critical, but they represent only part…

Today’s vascular patients rarely have disease confined to a single organ system. Many are living with chronic kidney disease, heart disease, and diabetes simultaneously. As these conditions become …

Conditions

7 questions to ask before pain treatment begins

Ben Lerner, DC

September 7, 2026Sep 7, 2026

When pain interferes with work, exercise, sleep, or everyday movement, it is natural to look for the fastest possible solution. Patients often arrive at an appointment asking whether a particular treatment will "fix" a painful knee, back, shoulder, or hip.…

Before choosing any non-surgical approach, patients should first understand what may be causing the pain, what the …

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