For a better practitioner and better outcomes, we need to start teaching this
Current medical education promotes and encourages the textbook approach to learning, while interactive patient-centered learning rarely happens. Although rote learning plays a critical role in medical education, applying what is learned deepens the understanding and application of rote-learned materials. Undergraduate students can learn with supervision from instructors and patients, so they are prepared to practice medicine with excellence.
These trainees are learning the latest available techniques but lack the experiential wisdom …
Take steps (literally) to prevent dementia
A recent study out of England found that walking just under 10,000 steps a day reduces a person’s risk of developing dementia by 50 percent. Pick up the pace to a “brisk” walk (over 40 steps per minute), and that risk goes down even further. Perhaps most strikingly, the authors found that even a low number of daily steps was associated with a reduced risk of dementia.
The walking study …
Is Google your first responder?
An excerpt from Taking Care of You: The Empowered Woman’s Guide to Better Health.
How many times have you found yourself with an unusual symptom or ailment and then quickly opened your phone to Google what it means? A lot of us do it! Whether we are searching for information for …
KevinMD on the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes!
In this special episode, KevinMD is on the other side of the microphone as he’s interviewed by cardiothoracic surgeon Philip Ovadia and patient advocate Jack Heald, originally aired on the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast. …
Primary Care 2.0: new thinking and practice redesign
A patient of mine — we’ll call her Ruby — is a 79-year-old woman from the same part of rural Tennessee as my mother. Her recent successful experiences with treatment illustrate some of the themes that my colleagues and I encountered when we undertook an 18-month practice-design-thinking process. Let’s start with Ruby’s example and then dig into Primary Care …
America is a magnet for global STEM talent
This essay is inspired in part by my recent encounter with a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). For starters, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration — or NASA for short — is an agency of the U.S. government responsible for America’s space program and aeronautics research. JPL, NASA’s research and development center located in Pasadena, California, produces spacecraft called rovers used in extra-planetary explorations.
It turns out that this …
Bridging the gap between art and science for better health
The myth that people are either right-brain dominant (creative and artistic) or left-brain dominant (logical, good at math, etc.) is just that – a myth. The truth is, we only have one brain – and the corpus callosum joins the left and right cerebral hemispheres because they are meant to work together. Numerous examples of people have excelled in both the sciences and arts.
Albert Einstein is remembered for being one …
A pediatrician reflects after a difficult conversation [PODCAST]
I went to Ukraine to help. Here’s what you can do.
I went to Poland and Ukraine in April and May of 2022, hoping to support the Ukrainian people in their defense of their country and democracy itself.
Vladimir Putin had put the world in a vise.
“Let me do what I want, or you will risk nuclear war,” was the implication. We’ve seen this before, I thought. Putin is Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin all rolled into one, and he needs to be …
What hospitals can learn from the RaDonda Vaught case
In response to a medication administration error that led to the death of a 75-year-old patient, RaDonda Vaught, a registered nurse working in Tennessee, was recently found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross negligence of an impaired adult.
As a result, she was sentenced to three years of probation with the promise that her criminal record would be expunged if she successfully completes the sentence.
Months after this …
Working in medicine isn’t an all-or-nothing situation
I have recently undergone (yet another) transition and am now back to living at home with my family full time instead of in an apartment half of the time. So wonderful most of the time … I think.
It is amazing and a very big wake-up call that I missed many of my children’s lives. And that those two years I will never get back, but it’s also just so hard …
Miscarriages in a post-Roe world [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes!
“The consequences of making miscarriage management unsafe will land most heavily on the marginalized and vulnerable. Our appalling maternal mortality rate in people of color will increase by miscarrying while Black. Our country and health care system …
ADVERTISEMENT
Health care’s dirty secret
Health care has a dirty little secret. And if you aren’t part of the club, chances are that you don’t know anything about it. Aside from COVID-19, short staffing, and the lack of hospital beds to accommodate those who need them, another crisis has been overshadowed and hidden from public view.
What is the secret? Health care is dangerous.
In fact, so many doctors and nurses are choosing to leave the bedside …
The focus of the internet of things (IoT) must pivot to achieve health care potential
In many ways, internet of things (IoT) is a double-edged sword: connected devices are capturing huge volumes and varieties of data that can be mined for everything from potentially life-saving health care information to guidance toward peak athletic performance, but it is incredibly difficult to convert that raw data into truly meaningful and actionable insights.
IDC projects that, by 2025, IoT devices will generate more than 73 zettabytes of data globally …
What does it mean to truly be an ally?
The University of Utah Physician Assistant Students Supporting Equity and Diversity (PASSED) group believes it’s important to discuss what it truly means to be an ally. This term has recently become more popular; however, it seems that “allyship” is being confused with “generalized/passive acknowledgment.” The definition of an ally is one who unites themselves with another to promote a common interest. Allyship calls for understanding the constant oppression that plagues …
ADVERTISEMENT
We cannot ignore nutrition’s impact on both pain and obesity
An excerpt from Epigenetics and the Psychology of Weight Loss: How to Lose More Weight with Less Effort.
We know that people with chronic pain are more likely to be obese; but does this happen because people with chronic pain struggle to exercise and suffer from a high load of stress …
Exploring the critical gaps in Canada’s health workforce planning [PODCAST]
It doesn’t matter where you are in the health care hierarchy
He was in the Ivy League for med school. His dad was an MD, and they lived not too far from this small town. Daddy’s house, a “mini-mansion,” was right around the corner.
After successfully completing his residency, Dr. David became our ER physician. This was a big deal—a big fish in a little pond.
He had an aura of wealth about him. He had an arrogance about him, too.
He was new …
ADVERTISEMENT
Families come in various forms
I was nervous, but I knew what I needed to do. I reminded myself that I would have regrets if I did not initiate the conversation I envisioned in the proceeding days. After a resident with whom I worked closely on my family medicine rotation gave me feedback on my performance, I asked if it would be OK to give him some feedback. He willingly agreed. After telling him how …
Past Week
-
A world without antidepressants: What could possibly go wrong?
-
Why no medical malpractice firm responded to my scientific protocol
-
Navigating physician non-competes: a strategy for staying put [PODCAST]
-
When doctors die in silence: Confronting the epidemic of violence against physicians
-
Doctors speak out: Why we’re saying no to burnout
-
Avoiding leadership pitfalls: strategies for success in health care [PODCAST]
-
Past 6 Months
-
Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting
-
What happened to real care in health care?
-
The silent crisis hurting pain patients and their doctors
-
How to build a culture where physicians feel valued [PODCAST]
-
How the CDC’s opioid rules created a crisis for chronic pain patients
-
Are quotas a solution to physician shortages?
-
Recent Posts
-
Navigating physician non-competes: a strategy for staying put [PODCAST]
-
In the absence of physician mentorship, who will train the next generation of primary care clinicians?
-
Fear of other people’s opinions nearly killed me. Here’s what freed me.
-
What independent and locum tenens doctors need to know about fair market value
-
Health care’s data problem: the real obstacle to AI success
-
What ChatGPT’s tone reveals about our cultural values
-
Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
545
pages
Past Week
-
A world without antidepressants: What could possibly go wrong?
-
Why no medical malpractice firm responded to my scientific protocol
-
Navigating physician non-competes: a strategy for staying put [PODCAST]
-
When doctors die in silence: Confronting the epidemic of violence against physicians
-
Doctors speak out: Why we’re saying no to burnout
-
Avoiding leadership pitfalls: strategies for success in health care [PODCAST]
-
Past 6 Months
-
Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting
-
What happened to real care in health care?
-
The silent crisis hurting pain patients and their doctors
-
How to build a culture where physicians feel valued [PODCAST]
-
How the CDC’s opioid rules created a crisis for chronic pain patients
-
Are quotas a solution to physician shortages?
-
Recent Posts
-
Navigating physician non-competes: a strategy for staying put [PODCAST]
-
In the absence of physician mentorship, who will train the next generation of primary care clinicians?
-
Fear of other people’s opinions nearly killed me. Here’s what freed me.
-
What independent and locum tenens doctors need to know about fair market value
-
Health care’s data problem: the real obstacle to AI success
-
What ChatGPT’s tone reveals about our cultural values
-
