Can AI help physicians tackle health care’s most pressing challenges?
This article is sponsored by Microsoft Dragon Copilot.
Physicians today face unprecedented pressures: …
The link between financial literacy and physician burnout
An excerpt from The Savvy Physician: A Financial Wellness Handbook for Physicians and Professionals.
As a physician, helping people in need is among the greatest honors and privileges in the world. In the complex world of medicine, physicians and health care professionals have the opportunity and privilege to enormously contribute to patient well-being at a time of significant personal and/or family health crisis.
In addition, many physicians and health care professionals …
Treating autism and ADHD as a spectrum, not a contradiction
He was five, wiry, and fast, so fast his mother looped her purse strap around his wrist in the waiting room. She spoke softly, in Spanish, explaining that he could not sit still, could not sleep, could not stop. As she described his meltdowns, he interrupted with nonsense sentences, unrelated to her words, untethered from context. It was not defiance; it was overflow.
I and my team of CNA Spanish interpreters …
The infectious hypothesis of heart disease revisited
I have written here before about my growing conviction that coronary artery disease is not just about LDL, inflammation, or bad luck. It is time to talk about what might be the elephant in the cath lab: infection.
A recent pathology study out of Japan looked at coronary plaque samples from patients with symptomatic CAD. Using both immunohistochemistry and PCR, they found Chlamydia pneumoniae in every single sample. All fifty plaques …
Why bureaucracy is threatening the survival of private practice physicians [PODCAST]
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Neurologist Scott Tzorfas discusses his article “The crushing bureaucracy that’s driving independent physicians to extinction.” Scott shares his firsthand experience as a neurologist in private practice for three decades, where endless pre-authorizations, …
Why direct primary care (DPC) models fail
I’m going to say something controversial: the DPC community’s obsession with “purity” is missing the point. After two decades designing health care financial models, negotiating payer & vendor contracts, and building compliance frameworks, I’ve learned that most alternative payment models don’t fail because they’re impure. They fail because someone forgot to do the math.
When $1 million can’t save a bad idea
The University of Houston medical school launched a direct primary …
The silent victories of medicine
Some battles announce themselves with trumpets; others creep in silently, spreading their fire unseen. His battle was the latter. What began as a hidden spark in his muscles had grown into an inferno consuming his young body from within.
He was barely thirteen, a boy from Bihar, when fate dragged him into this fight. By the time he reached us, fever had bound him for three relentless weeks. His pulse was …
How timing affects chemical exposure risks
As physicians, we’re used to thinking about dose (how much medication, how often, and for how long). But there’s another dimension that’s often overlooked: time. For decades, we’ve known that the body processes medicines differently depending on the time of day. A blood pressure pill or chemotherapy drug can have markedly different effects depending on when it’s taken. This field, known as chronopharmacology, has transformed how we think about drug …
A physician’s tribute to respiratory therapists
Larry is a friend. We are not besties. He is a neighbor, a few miles down the road from our forty-eight-acre hobby farm in our quaint little town, surrounded by farmland, generational farmers, rusted old tractors, cornfields, livestock, and a few homes interspersed in between. He is a neighbor, nonetheless. And a friend.
I first met Larry when we were building our country home, where my wife dreamt of raising a …
A cancer doctor’s warning about the future of medicine
I am a cancer doctor.
It took me many years to become one and while I paid for my medical school tuition, my residency and fellowship training was partially subsidized by government funds for general medical education. Every residency and fellowship is partially funded this way because the government recognizes the need for doctors. I have also had an NIH funded basic research lab where I did research that has contributed …
How to protect your voice like a professional
California Governor Gavin Newsom recently made headlines for his marathon public appearances, speeches, and press briefings. Watching him, I could not help but wonder what his voice coach or speech-language pathologist might say. As a clinician who specializes in voice therapy, I see teachers, pastors, lawyers, and health care providers (people who depend on their voices every day). Politicians are no different.
Our voices are often our most valuable tool, yet …
How physicians can use faith, family, friendship, and fulfillment to combat burnout [PODCAST]
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Rheumatologist Ananta Subedi discusses his article “The 4 foundations that sustain physicians through burnout and balance.” Ananta reflects on his journey from medical education in Nepal to building a rheumatology practice in …
Is Alzheimer’s an infectious disease?
For decades, neurology has told us that Alzheimer’s disease is caused by toxic proteins (amyloid plaques and tau tangles) that clog the brain. Pharmaceutical companies have poured billions into anti-amyloid drugs designed to wash them away. The results? Repeated failures, high-profile disappointments, and a handful of marginal approvals with no meaningful improvement in patients’ lives. Sound familiar? In cardiology, we’ve built an entire industry on lowering LDL cholesterol. Statins move …
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Life after GLP-1s: How to sustain weight loss
It should come as no surprise that GLP-1 receptor agonists have revolutionized the management of obesity and metabolic syndrome. These drugs have shown extraordinary promise in regulating appetite, promoting weight loss, and improving blood sugar control. Nearly one in eight adults (twelve percent) have taken a GLP-1 agonist, and forty-three percent of adults diagnosed with diabetes have used these therapies, numbers likely to have increased further in the last year …
Teaching medical students what it is really like to be a physician
Physician burnout and physician suicide continue to plague the medical profession. Everyone knows the tragic statistic: one U.S. physician commits suicide each day. While some statistics report a decrease in the problem over time, the accuracy of these reports is questionable. The reality is that it is far too common.
The term burnout, while a necessary label, implies that a single factor causes it. In reality, each burned-out physician is different. …
A new framework for depression recovery
What if recovery from depression was not only about reducing symptoms, but about rekindling a person’s inner spark?
During my years as a Navy nurse in mental health, I witnessed countless people navigating the heavy fog of depression. Many were offered medication, therapy, or structured activity schedules. These approaches saved lives and improved outcomes. Yet sometimes, despite best efforts, patients still felt like they were going through the motions, managing symptoms …
Why doctors are losing the health care culture war
The interview ends. The line goes dead. A senior CDC official has resigned, not because the science changed, but because the room did. Within forty-eight hours, CDC Director Monarez is fired by tweet, three senior leaders walk out, and a deputy from HHS (Jim O’Neill, a Silicon Valley investor turned political enforcer) is slotted in as acting CDC chief.
The headlines say turmoil. That is the polite word for capture.
Meanwhile, the …
Innovations and barriers in colorectal cancer screening strategies [PODCAST]
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Nurse practitioner Elisabeth Evans discusses her article “The critical role of nurse practitioners in colorectal cancer screening.” Elisabeth shares why colorectal cancer is the second-deadliest cancer in the U.S. yet remains under-screened, …
Global surgery needs advocates, not just evidence
In the world of global surgery, progress is a word we love to repeat. Since 2015, we have celebrated the drafting of National Surgical, Obstetric, and Anaesthesia Plans (NSOAPs), applauded World Health Assembly resolutions, and cited countless academic papers. But walk into a district hospital in a low- or middle-income country, and the patient waiting for a life-saving operation will not feel that progress. For them, the promises of global …
The hypocrisy of insurance referral mandates
Every week, I see patients not because they need to, but because their insurance company says they must. A patient came in recently for one reason only: Her insurer required a referral before she could see a specialist. She didn’t want to. I didn’t need her to. But we both had no choice. After a 20-minute visit neither of us needed, I did what the insurer required: document, click, submit. …
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