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Physician burnout is a threat, no different from the spread of a virus—here’s how to fix it

Physician

July 15, 2023

Few problems in health care are more vexing or persistent than physician burnout. It’s a problem that poses a serious threat to patient care, no different from the spread of a virus or the impact of cigarette smoke. And it has only gotten worse since the pandemic.

Burned-out physicians are less effective as healers. They don’t connect as well with patients, undermining the therapeutic benefits of a close clinician-patient relationship. They …

Residency match system and flexibility: the hidden factors behind burnout

J. Tyler Bates, DO

Education

July 15, 2023

ERAS is now open, and medical students all over are compiling their applications to match into residency. As someone who is in a field they desired to pursue while in college but took a circuitous route there (four years as a generalist in the Air Force, practicing after completing an internship), I cannot help but wonder if some of our residency match systems is a contributing factor to burnout.

Many studies …

How legal liabilities and skewed decision-making plague clinical encounters

Jay K. Joshi, MD

Physician

July 15, 2023

The opioid crisis continues to ravage communities, and everyone, including politicians and federal agents, has a plan. However, no one has an actual solution.

It’s time to examine the crisis from a more detailed perspective: the clinical perceptions that form during a clinical encounter between a physician and a patient. It is here that we see the true effects of opioid policy and understand why they are so ineffective.

At the end …

Mastering mindfulness: Restoring autonomy and curing burnout for physicians [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

July 14, 2023

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

Join Gail Gazelle, an internal medicine physician, physician coach, and author of Mindful MD: 6 Ways Mindfulness Restores Your Autonomy and Cures Healthcare Burnout, where we explore the transformative power of mindfulness in health care. In …

On Juneteenth I learned the ugly truth of my new hometown. It restored my faith in humanity.

Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA

Policy

July 14, 2023

Most of the racially debated issues these days can be summed up by the terms “critical race theory” and “wokeism” – terms that have become the defining issues of our time even though half the people can’t explain them and the other half use them for political gain to dictate how history is taught, stripping it of any mention of slavery, racism, and LGBTQ+ people. So, I’d like to reframe the …

Lowering hallucination results with ChatGPT

Harvey Castro, MD, MBA

Tech

July 14, 2023

The advances of AI, specifically models like GPT-4 from OpenAI, have given rise to powerful tools capable of generating human-like text responses. These models are invaluable in myriad contexts, from customer service and support systems to educational tools and content generators. However, these capabilities also present unique challenges, including the generation of ‘hallucination’ results. In AI, hallucinations refer to instances when the model provides information that, although plausible, is not …

Food allergies are not preferences. Let’s start treating them that way.

David R. Stukus, MD and Anushree Vashist

Conditions

July 14, 2023

We’re in a rapidly growing food allergy epidemic. 1 in 13 American children have food allergies—a number that’s only growing. Private insurance claims of anaphylactic food reactions, which are severe and potentially life-threatening, rose 377 percent from 2007 to 2016. Yet despite their increased prevalence in recent years, one thing hasn’t changed: Undermining the very real risks and anxieties associated with living with food allergies.

Beyond the risk of …

The surprising truth behind virtual visits

Michael Kirsch, MD

Physician

July 14, 2023

We live in an era now when workers have leverage over their employers. Nearly every establishment is struggling to hire employees. It’s mysterious not only why so many folks have chosen not to return to work but also how they are paying their living expenses. Remote work, particularly for younger workers, has become a non-negotiable red line. If you are an employer who expects full-time in-person presence, then good luck …

Revolutionizing health care through technology [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

July 13, 2023

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

Join Juan Carlos Gonzalez, Jr., health equity researcher and advocate, as we explore the transformative power of technology in health care. This podcast episode discusses the potential of health information technology, telehealth, and data-driven solutions to improve …

Demystifying options: How to generate income, enhance returns, and safeguard investments with confidence

Scott Kyle and Patrick Fischer

Finance

July 13, 2023

An excerpt from The Compound Code: An Expert Guide to Trading Stocks & Options.

The focus of this chapter is on how to use options to generate income, enhance returns, and provide downside protection. Options can be complex and confusing, if not outright intimidating. Many people think of derivatives in general …

The invaluable role of residents in transforming health care

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Physician

July 13, 2023

The query surrounding graduate medical education (GME) programs and their faculty revolves around whether they truly recognize the value of residents. Assessing their value can be subjective as well as objective. Here are some questions that programs, faculty, and residents should contemplate before drawing their own conclusions.

Do health care institutions incur financial losses when they have residents who cannot directly bill health care payers for their services, compared to institutions …

How preventive medicine physicians can fix the broken system [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

July 12, 2023

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

Join us as we speak with Donna Grande, CEO of the American College of Preventive Medicine. We discuss the urgent need to overhaul the broken health care system in the U.S., addressing issues such as the high …

Unlocking business acumen: Why doctors must take charge of their careers

Woojin Joo, MD

Physician

July 12, 2023

Lack of business education among doctors is a topic I’ve been considering as I decide which direction to take in my career. I wholeheartedly agree with the lack of physician engagement in the business of medicine is troublesome. However, blaming academia’s lack of financial education as an external force for the profession’s lack of financial ability is not productive. The mindset of placing responsibility on our educators actually exemplifies …

The case for eliminating recertification by the ABIM

Brian Hudes, MD

Physician

July 12, 2023

The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) has long been responsible for setting standards and ensuring the competence of internal medicine practitioners. However, the practice of mandatory recertification has faced increasing scrutiny and debate within the medical community. This article explores some of the key reasons why eliminating recertification requirements imposed by the ABIM could have significant benefits for physicians and patient care.

Lack of evidence for improved patient outcomes

One of …

The surprising power of lifestyle and diet changes to prevent infertility

Nicole Avena, PhD

Conditions

July 12, 2023

An excerpt from What to Eat When You Want to Get Pregnant.

I know firsthand how hard infertility can be to talk about. Personally, I struggled conceiving my second daughter, and I am an advocate for taking control of your own fertility through lifestyle and diet changes. Infertility has been seen …

Radiologist-clinician collaboration is key to optimal diagnostic outcomes [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

July 11, 2023

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

Join us for a conversation with Houda Bouhmam, a radiology resident, as we explore the crucial collaboration between radiologists and clinicians in achieving the best diagnostic outcomes. Houda shares her transformative journey, dispelling misconceptions about clinical correlation …

Chinese chicken congee for the soul: Aligning care with cultural context

Cherry Au, MD, Christine Tsai, MD, and Mandy Che

Physician

July 11, 2023

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, with 18.9 million currently in the U.S. and a projected 35.8 million by 2060 with many Asian Americans being immigrants. A study of over 6,700 Asian Americans, Hispanics, African Americans, and Caucasians revealed that Asian Americans were least likely to feel that their physician understood their background and values, and compared to Caucasians, Asians were less …

Ending the opioid crisis starts with physicians

Amy Baxter, MD

Conditions

July 11, 2023

A recently published opinion article by opioid advocates attempts to assuage physicians’ prescribing guilt, arguing “doctors prescribing to their patients did not create the U.S. opioid crisis.” As lawsuit after lawsuit concludes, Purdue Pharma, Johnson and Johnson, and blindered distributors and pharmacies share the blame for propping up pills for profit. Physicians may inflate home narcotic quantities for convenience, but with rare prosecutable exceptions, not monetary gain. But the …

Our institutions have given up on the COVID-19 pandemic. We should not.

William Zhu and Gregory Jasani, MD

Conditions

July 11, 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic is over. On May 5, The World Health Organization announced that COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency. The U.S. followed suit on May 11, allowing the public health emergency declaration to expire.

The pandemic did not end because of vaccination efforts nor from acquired herd immunity. The pandemic is over because of the capitulation and resignation of public health authorities as they concede …

How COVID-19 unleashed the power of microservices and container-based solutions

Mike Hines

Tech

July 11, 2023

Our reaction to COVID-19 brought us a very sudden socially distanced, remote-working, touchless economy, in which the majority of our daily interactions needed to be remote interactions. Some industries adapted easily (think tax preparation), and some, like health care where personal contact is often mandatory, struggled to find solutions. However, health care IT departments adjusted quickly and deployed a truly impressive array of low and no-contact services. The solutions ranged …

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