KevinMD.com

From doctor to patient: a critical care physician’s ICU journey

Conditions

January 29, 2026

This is the fifth New Year since the onset of COVID-19 in America. I am a pulmonary and critical care physician who had spent a decade of my life working in ICUs before I became an ICU patient myself in 2025. As a physician, husband, and father of four young children, I had been saving others. But this year, I needed to be saved.

Transitions are times for introspection. How do …

Scientific literacy in nutrition: How to read food labels

M. Bennet Broner, PhD

Conditions

January 29, 2026

Dr. Andrea Love wrote about the lack of basic scientific knowledge among the public, noting that only about 28 percent of people possess it. She highlighted the consequences of this, emphasizing how it can negatively affect people’s decisions and lives.

Many of the articles I have written have dealt with scientific knowledge in one form or another. My comments on the FDA and drug approvals, Alzheimer’s and cancer screening blood tests, …

The poet who changed my DNA

Ryan McCarthy, MD

Physician

January 29, 2026

In 1983, The Outsiders featured Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and, augmented by Francis Ford Coppola’s cinematic genius, it planted a seed, one I was unaware of at the time.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can …

Read more…

The poet who changed my DNA

World Health Organization reframes fertility care as a fundamental right [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

January 28, 2026

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

Fertility specialist and founder of Montgomery Fertility Center Oluyemisi (Yemi) Famuyiwa discusses her article “Infertility public health: the WHO’s new global guideline.” Oluyemisi examines the historic release of global guidelines that reframe …

How personal experience shapes perimenopause and menopause care

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian

Conditions

January 28, 2026

Many OB-GYNs find their views on perimenopause and menopause change once they experience these transitions themselves. Even with medical training, the symptoms can be surprising and harder to recognize than expected.

As women’s health clinicians, we understand the common challenges of this stage of life. Hot flashes, sleep problems, vaginal dryness, mood changes, weight gain, and trouble concentrating can affect daily routines in ways that many women do not expect. When …

Pediatric care barriers in West Africa: a clinician’s perspective

Maureen Oluwaseun Adeboye

Education

January 28, 2026

For the past few weeks, I’ve been rotating through pediatrics. In the emergency room, I met a little boy I’ll call Ian.

Ian was wary of everyone who came close to him, especially anyone holding a stethoscope or thermometer. Sometimes all it took was the way you raised your hand, or a glance toward his neck, for him to retreat behind invisible walls. He was only about a year and a …

Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Williams, and the art of aging

Gerald Kuo

Conditions

January 28, 2026

When Anne-Sophie Mutter appeared under the lights in Taipei to play John Williams, the audience was already aging with her. That is not a tragedy; it is a form of wisdom. In a super-aged society, an evening at the concert hall is not only entertainment; it is an anatomy lesson in movement, meaning, and care.

Tempo and governance

The program opened with “Sound the Bells!” The brass did not summon cinematic sentiment; …

Why the real flex in life is freedom of time and self

Preyasha Tuladhar, MD

Physician

January 28, 2026

You know the real flex in life is to be able to stretch out like a cat on a random Tuesday and not worry about bills or appointments or being anywhere.

I think there’s something truly to be said about time freedom (and not only time freedom, but freedom of self) where we can let go of the guilt and shame and all these things that hustle culture has ingrained in …

Why PBM transparency rules aren’t enough to lower drug prices

Armin Pazooki

Policy

January 28, 2026

House lawmakers recently passed a health care bill that grabbed headlines for what it excluded: a solution to the looming expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits. But largely overlooked inside the bill was a provision that did make it through, a long-requested provision toward creating stronger federal legislation directly targeting pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the middlemen who increasingly determine what Americans pay for their medications. These rules …

Clinical attachment in medicine: How familiarity creates safety

Nesrin Abu Ata, MD

Physician

January 28, 2026

You don’t learn this in medical school: Clinical familiarity creates attachment.

Not the kind we mean in romance. Not even the kind we mean in psychotherapy. Something quieter and more automatic, built through repetition and stakes.

You don’t have to say anything deeply personal for it to happen.

You just have to show up again. And again. And again.

Same hallway turns. Same waiting room chairs. Same voice calling your name. Same pace in …

Racial disparities in pancreatic cancer screening cost Black lives [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

January 27, 2026

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

Internal medicine physician Earl Stewart, Jr. discusses his article “Pancreatic cancer racial disparities.” Earl examines the devastating pattern of pancreatic cancer claiming Black cultural icons like John Lewis and Aretha Franklin while …

A poem on kidney cancer survivorship and the annual scan

Michele Luckenbaugh

Conditions

January 27, 2026

Once a year,
I return to two quiet organs
I once carried without thought,
working faithfully in the dark,
asking for nothing,
until one day they asked to be seen.

Cysts.
Small moons of fluid,
bubbles scattered like careless stars
throughout the geography of me.
Harmless, they said.
Mostly.
Until one was not.

That year,
a word entered my body:
cancer.
A word that knows how to make itself at home
in every corner of thought.

A specialist explained
how light and force could be aimed,
how the invader could …

AI-enabled clinical data abstraction: a nurse’s perspective

Pamela Ashenfelter, RN

Tech

January 27, 2026

I’ve spent more than 30 years in nursing, and in recent years my work has shifted to something most people never think about: clinical data abstraction. My job is to review the medical record and extract the pieces of information that clinical registries rely on for research, quality reporting, regulatory requirements, and everyday decision-making. It’s specialized work that depends on clinical judgment, a deep understanding of clinical documentation in the …

Why clinical excellence isn’t enough to sustain a physician-owned hospital

Dr. Bhavin P. Vadodariya

Physician

January 27, 2026

Most physicians begin their careers with a deeply held belief: If treatment is good, patients will come. It feels intuitively correct, and early in practice it often appears to be true. Clinical outcomes build trust, trust brings patients, and for a time the system seems to sustain itself. Yet after years of working inside physician-owned hospitals, group practices, and large corporate health systems, I have learned an uncomfortable truth. Good …

Emergency department metrics vs. reality: Why the numbers lie

Marilyn McCullum, RN

Policy

January 27, 2026

The emergency department didn’t suddenly get worse.

The numbers did.

Every shift, emergency clinicians are measured by dashboards that insist on telling a familiar story: Door-to-provider times are too long, length of stay is unacceptable, left-without-being-seen rates are creeping up. The implication is clear. We’re slow. We’re inefficient. We’re failing.

But those numbers are no longer describing clinical performance. They’re describing system saturation.

Emergency departments today operate in conditions that were once considered temporary …

Hashimoto’s disease in adolescent girls: Why it’s often overlooked

Callia Georgoulis

Conditions

January 27, 2026

Hashimoto’s disease is the most common cause of hypothyroidism in children and adolescents, yet it remains frequently overlooked, particularly in adolescent girls. Fatigue, mood changes, weight gain, and cognitive slowing are often attributed to mental health conditions or dismissed as normal features of puberty, delaying diagnosis and treatment. This pattern reflects a broader failure to recognize how autoimmune thyroid disease presents during adolescence, and how gendered assumptions shape clinical interpretation …

Hidden financial dangers of wRVU thresholds in medical employment agreements [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

January 26, 2026

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

Health care attorney Dennis Hursh discusses his article “wRVU threshold risks in physician contracts.” Dennis explains the critical distinction between a guaranteed salary and a draw against future earnings where failure to …

Leading with love: a physician’s guide to clarity and compassion

Jessie Mahoney, MD

Physician

January 26, 2026

In medicine, we are trained to lead with logic. To analyze, evaluate, and act. We are praised for decisive thinking, efficiency, and evidence-based decisions. In the hardest moments of my life, career, and leadership, none of those tools brought me clarity.

Ten years ago, as a practicing pediatrician and physician leader, my personal life began to fall apart. My husband, who had always been steady and supportive, began to slide into …

Why doctors ignore their own advice on hydration and health

Amanda Shim, MD

Conditions

January 26, 2026

“I’m surprised I haven’t had a kidney stone.”

It’s a running joke among my co-residents, when it’s 3 o’clock in the morning, with over 20 patients in the waiting room, and nobody can remember the last time they had water. Most days, my fluid intake is limited to the sips needed to swallow my antidepressants (to quote my parents, “you can’t just take them whenever you feel sad,” and “it’s not …

Low testosterone in men: a doctor’s guide to TRT safety

Martina Ambardjieva, MD

Conditions

January 26, 2026

A man in his late 40s sits down in my office and says, “Doctor, I think my testosterone is low.”

Sometimes he is already holding lab results. Sometimes he is coming from a gym forum, a friend’s recommendation, or a late-night Google search. But almost always, the story sounds familiar: lower sex drive, fewer morning erections, weaker erections, fatigue, brain fog, mood changes, and that stubborn belly fat that seems to …

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Most Popular

Past Week

Past 6 Months

Recent Posts