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Integrity in medicine is quietly under strain

Physician

April 29, 2026

There is a sentence physicians have said for generations: “We’ll take good care of you.” It is a good sentence. Patients need to hear it, and most of the time it is said with sincerity. Yet there are moments, more now than before, when that sentence carries a second awareness alongside it. The emergency department is boarding. There may not be an inpatient bed for hours, sometimes longer. Tests, consults, …

Surviving cystic fibrosis: a double lung transplant journey

Rebecca Poole and Raymond Poole

Conditions

April 29, 2026

I was eight months old when I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a genetic illness that slowly damages the lungs and can affect digestion and other organs. My parents quickly learned the rhythms of it all: treatments, medications, and constant vigilance.

But here is the part people do not always expect: I still got to be a kid. I rode horses. I ran cross country. I went to college. I fell …

Why nature-based medicine is the future of health care

John La Puma, MD

Education

April 29, 2026

This month, 53 medical schools committed to requiring 40 hours of nutrition education. As the physician who co-taught the first U.S. medical school class in culinary medicine, with Mike Roizen, MD, founding director of the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, I am proud that culinary medicine is now taught in roughly 80 percent of U.S. medical schools. I recognize this as a genuine win. But I have watched this story before, …

How to negotiate a physician sabbatical in private practice

Sarah Gebauer, MD

Physician

April 29, 2026

When I tell other physicians that I negotiated a sabbatical from private practice, a full semester abroad with my family, followed by months of extended travel, the reaction is almost always the same. It starts with disbelief, moves quickly to calculation (“But who covered you? What happened to your income?”), and ends, more often than not, with a version of: “I could never do that.” I understand the reaction because …

When a stomach bug is actually an atypical heart attack

Karim Ali, MD, MBA

Conditions

April 29, 2026

A patient arrives in the emergency department vomiting. Not once or twice, but repeatedly, leaning over the bedside basin, pale and sweating, clearly miserable. Between episodes, he tries to explain what happened. Earlier in the day he felt completely fine. Then the nausea started suddenly, followed by vomiting, cramping, and a cold sweat that made his shirt cling to his back. By the time he arrived in the emergency room, …

6 signs of burnout in high-achieving students

Ritu Goel, MD

Conditions

April 29, 2026

The student sitting across from me didn’t think she was burned out. She had just made the dean’s list, locked in a competitive summer internship, and was running two clubs. She was sleeping four hours a night, had stopped texting friends back, and described feeling “nothing” when she opened her acceptance letter to a graduate program she had spent two years working toward. “This is just what college is supposed …

He declined routine X-rays and was denied a dental cleaning [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 28, 2026

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

What happens when a patient makes a reasonable, informed decision to skip a non-mandatory test and the system simply stops? Patient advocate Aaron S. Rosenberg shares how a routine dental visit became a …

Why patient understanding is the missing metric in medicine

Joseph A. Rotella, MD, DC

Physician

April 28, 2026

A patient nods. You explain the diagnosis. You review the plan. You answer questions. You feel like the visit went well.

“Any questions?” you ask.

“No, I am good.”

They leave. And if you are honest, there is a moment, sometimes fleeting, sometimes not, where you wonder: Did they actually understand any of that? As you know, you have to pick up the pace to see another patient. In modern medicine, we measure …

Transforming nursing education with immersive technology

Kelly J. Dries, PhD, RN

Tech

April 28, 2026

Nursing education is at a breaking point. In classrooms and clinical sites across the country, faculty are stretched thin while students struggle to get the hands-on experiences that build confidence for day one of practice. The result is mounting pressure to expand access without sacrificing quality. Programs must graduate nurses who are technically competent and truly practice-ready, in a profession evolving faster than ever. Striking that balance with lectures, clinicals, …

Pilot mental health is a safety issue, not a stigma

Timothy Lesaca, MD

Physician

April 28, 2026

You know what it feels like to keep working and pushing yourself when you are tired, distracted, or maybe even burned out. It’s common across professions, and we rarely speak about it openly. We almost never think of it as a safety issue. But for airline pilots, that silence can put hundreds of lives at risk.

That is why I believe this belongs in a conversation among clinicians. Medicine is often …

How high pressure destroys relational care in nursing

Megan Diaz, RN

Conditions

April 28, 2026

I am a registered nurse with 16 years of bedside experience, and I have come to understand a problem in health care that is rarely named directly: The conditions we work under shape what we are able to perceive. Care is still delivered. The chart is complete, the discharge is placed, and the bed opens. From the outside, the system appears to function, but something essential is missing, and the …

Why Kennedy’s addiction treatment plan raises ethical concerns

Gary McMurtrie and Abhijay Mudigonda

Policy

April 28, 2026

The current U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has consistently captured public attention with his actions and rhetoric, but one aspect of his public health agenda that has received comparatively little scrutiny is his proposed reconceptualization of addiction treatment, undergirded by his support for and stated intent to emulate Patrignano. Patrignano is an addiction treatment program in Italy where people who use drugs (PWUD) participate …

Why mental health care in Nigeria needs a new approach

Dr. Mansur Auwal Sani

Conditions

April 28, 2026

It started with a headache. At least, that is what she told the nurse. A middle-aged woman sat quietly in the outpatient clinic, her hands folded tightly in her lap. She had visited the hospital three times in two months complaining of headaches, fatigue, and body pains. Her blood pressure was normal. Her blood tests were unremarkable. Her physical examination revealed nothing alarming. Yet something was clearly wrong. After a …

She donated 2,000 hours of unpaid labor before she even noticed [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 27, 2026

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

When did volunteering stop being a choice and start being a condition of professionalism? Pediatrician, certified coach, and mindfulness and yoga teacher Jessie Mahoney realized she had donated over 2,000 hours of uncompensated …

Bridging the gap in neurodevelopmental care and pediatrics

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Conditions

April 27, 2026

Long before I stood on collapsing bridges between DBP and NDD, I was the 1977 kid who intentionally derailed Bobby Jr.’s grand “seed money” scheme for free home heating oil for the poor, not out of mischief, but because there was no plan behind it. It was a hallucinogenic vision dressed up as strategy, with no capability for realization. Even then, I could not pretend something workable existed when it …

Overcoming barriers to holding babies with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy during therapeutic cooling

Newborn Brain Society and Hope for HIE

Conditions

April 27, 2026

Imagine going to the hospital after nine months of pregnancy expecting to have a perfect birth and baby only to suffer from a tragic birth complication. Your doctor shares that your baby has a brain injury and must be transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for cooling treatment. You meet your baby surrounded by machines and loud monitors. For three long days during this cooling treatment, you are …

4 questions to ask about enterprise AI drug dosing

Amanda Heidemann, MD

Tech

April 27, 2026

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how health care organizations support clinicians and, ultimately, how they care for patients. That transformation, however, is unfolding along two very different paths at the point of care.

In one model, adoption is clinician-driven. Tools are downloaded, tested, and incorporated into daily practice without formal enterprise involvement. This organic uptake often reflects real clinical need, especially in environments defined by time pressure and cognitive overload. But it …

How corporate health care ruined the medical profession

Edmond Cabbabe, MD

Physician

April 27, 2026

In the golden days of practicing medicine, the hospitals’ boards were composed of community leaders acting on behalf of the hospitals to raise funds, negotiate insurance contracts, screen and supervise the performance of the key employees, and interact with the government. They used their passion and influence to facilitate the delivery of health care to the communities they served. Most of these board members were volunteers or philanthropists. A few …

A physician’s journey with a hidden CSF leak and delayed diagnosis

Anonymous

Conditions

April 27, 2026

In 2023, I was in a serious motor vehicle collision. The injury that followed, a vertebral artery dissection, required real recovery. I did the work and thought I had come out the other side. I was looking forward to celebrating my three-year anniversary since the accident. I was feeling grateful. I was not expecting what came next.

The bike

I love spinning. The bike was the first thing I reclaimed after the …

Bariatric surgery vs. semaglutides vs. endoscopic visceral lipectomy

Robert Cucin, MD, JD

Conditions

April 27, 2026

Despite the emergence of new pharmacologic alternatives to traditional bariatric surgery, the global obesity epidemic continues to escalate. Semaglutides, while effective for some, are costly, require weekly injections, and often cause side effects that lead many patients to discontinue treatment and subsequently regain much or all the weight they lost. Both bypass and restrictive bariatric procedures carry significant risks, side effects, and long-term lifestyle adjustments, and most patients ultimately reach …

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