How chronic stress harms the heart in minority communities

Conditions
September 2, 2025

As a cardiologist in New York City who treats a sizable Bangladeshi‑American community, I have witnessed otherwise healthy individuals exhibit concerning cardiovascular events, frequently in the absence of conventional risk markers. What unites them? Severe, protracted psychological stress brought on by prejudice, family court disputes, immigration problems, or financial instability.

The mechanisms of prolonged stress

Prolonged stress raises cortisol, adrenaline, and inflammatory cytokines via activating the sympathetic nervous system and hypothalamic‑pituitary‑adrenal (HPA) …

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Could antibiotics beat heart disease where statins failed?

Conditions
September 2, 2025

Coronary artery disease is still the world’s number-one killer.

That’s despite statins, PCSK9 inhibitors, stents, bypasses, and decades of lifestyle messaging.

We’ve gotten better at managing heart attacks, but we haven’t cured heart disease. Or prevented it. Or even figured out exactly what causes it.

As an internist and lipidologist (in recovery), I spent years chasing cholesterol numbers, especially HDL. I gave talks for Abbott. I pushed niacin like it was salvation. Then …

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The dying man who gave me flowers changed how I see care

Physician
September 2, 2025

Today for the first time, I got flowers from a grateful patient.

And I reflect on how rough the week has been, all the things that seemed impossible and insurmountable, and everything that has brought me to this point. The patient is going on hospice, he’s going to die, yet he felt that I made a significant impact that he wanted to show his gratitude. And that almost brought me to …

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Universities must tap endowments to sustain biomedical research

Conditions
September 2, 2025

American medical schools and universities once led the world in biomedical discovery, in large part due to federal funding. Public investment in science helped eradicate polio, unlock the human genome, and develop life-saving treatments for diseases once considered death sentences. But that era of reliable federal funding is ending under the current White House administration – and America’s research enterprise is at risk of going with it.

Over the past decade, …

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Exploring the science behind burnout [PODCAST]

Podcast
September 1, 2025
YouTube video

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Physician Jessie Mahoney discusses her article “Ending burnout through structure, not gimmicks,” making the case that the most effective remedies for physician burnout are systemic changes—reasonable patient loads, thoughtful schedules, supportive leadership, …

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Apprenticeship reshapes medical training for confident clinicians

Conditions
September 1, 2025

I’ve worn many hats in my medical career—lab technician, Physician Assistant, Army Captain, and teacher. But no matter where I’ve served, one truth has followed me like a shadow: The most effective medical learning doesn’t happen in a classroom. It happens beside a patient, with blood pressure cuff in hand, chart under arm, and a mentor who knows when to step back and let you try.

The most powerful educational model …

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How American medicine profits from despair

Policy
September 1, 2025

American medicine has mastered a perverse art: paying more to achieve less.

We call it “cost-cutting,” but it is a system of engineered backwardness. We underfund clinical staff, then spend fortunes on lawyers to defend the inevitable errors. We employ armies to process bills while insurers employ armies to deny them. We treat the eyes, the teeth, and the mind as optional accessories, as if they could be unbolted from the …

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How market forces fracture millennial physicians’ careers

Physician
September 1, 2025

This first decade of my career as a millennial physician is starting to look as fragmented on my CV as it has felt in reality, chasing even a modicum of the stability that the physicians of my father’s generation took for granted. Meanwhile, the chaos engendered by market forces like vertical and horizontal integration across insurance and hospital systems, private-equity-backed buyouts of physician practices and surgery centers, and now just …

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What I learned about health care by watching who gets left behind

Policy
September 1, 2025

Before I started medical school, I used to pass the same government hospital every day on my way to school. It was one of those places that offered “free treatment,” but even as a teenager, I could sense that the care was often just for the name. I remember going to school the next day at around 6:30 a.m., I saw a man sitting outside the hospital, the same man …

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Why palliative care is more than just end-of-life support

Conditions
September 1, 2025

As doctors, we often tend to focus on solving the problem at hand. We identify the issue, make a diagnosis, and try to treat the condition to the best of our capabilities. And in this pursuit to achieve our textbook level of homeostasis, we often forget that it is the patient who requires us. As rightfully pointed out in the posters outside the palliative care center, sometimes we may encounter …

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Few people realize this common infection can cause serious complications [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 31, 2025
YouTube video

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Public health advocate Kathleen Muldoon discusses her article “Why congenital CMV should be on every parent and doctor’s radar,” revealing how congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) remains the most common viral cause of disability …

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Unity in primary care: Why I believe physicians and NPs/PAs must work together toward the same goal

Physician
August 31, 2025

YouTube video

In today’s health care system, primary care is stretched thin. Patients face longer wait times, providers are burned out, and practices are under constant pressure to do more with less time in their hands. In the middle of this strain, I have noticed a troubling trend, divisions between physicians (MDs, DOs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) or physician assistants (PAs).

I strongly believe that …

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My improbable survival of stage 4 cancer

Conditions
August 31, 2025

I have always despised the trope of the patient who pulls through against all odds, despite all evidence to the contrary. Yes, diagnoses can shift and treatment plans evolve, but the ultimate trajectory rarely strays far from the original suspicion. Still, I understand why those stories resonate.

As a resident, I cared for a teen who got a night off from treatment to get married, and another who went to prom …

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How Filipino cultural values shape silence around mental health

Education
August 31, 2025

Filipino Americans are one of the fastest-growing and most diverse Asian American subgroups in the U.S.—yet they remain one of the most misunderstood, especially when it comes to mental health. Whether due to the myth of the “model minority” or the aggregation of Asian health data that obscures subgroup differences, Filipino Americans face a growing but overlooked mental health crisis.

Despite strong cultural values rooted in resilience, family, and faith, Filipino …

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Why leadership training in medicine needs to start with self-awareness

Education
August 31, 2025

Leadership training in medicine is often framed around titles and administrative skills, preparing students to one day manage teams or step into academic or hospital leadership roles. While these skills are important, they miss the deeper, more urgent need in medical education: helping future physicians understand themselves, navigate complex health care systems, and make intentional career decisions aligned with their values.

Why traditional leadership training falls short

Countless physicians enter practice only …

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Federal shakeup of vaccine policy and the battle for public trust [PODCAST]

Podcast
August 30, 2025
YouTube video

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Physician leader Janet Jokela discusses her article “How federal actions threaten vaccine policy and trust,” highlighting the unprecedented removal of expert members from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and its replacement …

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Why clinicians must lead health care tech innovation

Tech
August 30, 2025

Over the past couple of years, advanced technological development, adoption, and implementation have grown exponentially across industries, including health care. What started with the adoption of advanced electronic health records (EHRs) — 96 percent of hospitals and 88 percent of physicians have adopted EHRs within the last decade — is now developing into the rapid growth of AI to support administrative tasks and data analytics. A 2024 survey found …

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The truth about sun exposure: What dermatologists want you to know

Conditions
August 30, 2025

Sunlight is essential to life. It stimulates the production of Vitamin D, a hormone that plays a crucial role in bone health, immune function, and possibly the prevention of several chronic diseases. Sun exposure also influences our circadian rhythm, improves mood through serotonin regulation, and has been linked to better mental health outcomes, including reduced risk of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

In moderation, sunlight can be deeply beneficial, especially in populations …

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Learning medicine in the age of AI: Why future doctors need digital fluency

Education
August 30, 2025

When I started medical school, I imagined long nights memorizing anatomy, shadowing physicians, and, eventually, walking hospital hallways in a white coat while trying to solve the intricate puzzles that patients carry in their bodies.

What I didn’t expect was that some of the most important lessons wouldn’t come from a professor or a textbook but from conversations about algorithms, data, and machines that learn.

Artificial intelligence felt distant at first, something …

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How a South Asian nurse challenged stereotypes in health care

Conditions
August 30, 2025

“Are you going to be wearing a white skirt and a hat from now?”

That was one of the first things I heard when I told relatives I had been accepted into nursing school. It was a joke — at least that’s how it was delivered. But the meaning behind it wasn’t funny.

In my South Asian community, nursing is seen as women’s work — important, but low-status. For a man to …

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