KevinMD.com

The transformation of doctors into “Dr. Widgets”

Physician

December 29, 2022

It has finally happened, I have transitioned to viewing myself as a widget, a depersonalized interface between the EMR and the patient. I am the unnamed device that collects the patient data and subsequently transcribes it into prose for billing purposes and maybe the occasional colleague review. There is a bit of curious comfort in identifying myself as a mere cog. I’m imagining I will now fly below the radar, …

Ode to the paper chart

Eve Makoff, MD

Physician

December 29, 2022

Oh how I miss the feel of your thick spine, so wide I could barely grasp you with my oddly small hands. Wrist cocked, an awkward drag ensued from rack to desk, your heft landing with a thump under fluorescent lights on the laminate desk. I scooted into the low chair and dove in with aplomb. I was ready.

I started just beneath your mauve plastic cover. There, just under the …

Read more…

Ode to the paper chart

I used OpenAI to generate art on health care burnout. The images were startlingly moving.

Jennifer Lycette, MD

Physician

December 29, 2022

After seeing recent images from OpenAI’s DALL-E-2 art generator, I decided to give it a try. I thought about a topic that I am interested in, others I know are interested in, and I was curious to see an AI’s ability to interpret. I decided on health care burnout.

In the prompt field for the art generator, I entered the words “healthcare burnout doctors nurses exhausted hope love disease …

A medical lifeline for the aging male [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

December 28, 2022

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

“It seems too good to be true, but it is: physical activity improves every health outcome we can name. Note that some of those benefits arrive in the long term, some in the short.

It’s critically important to …

Character, not cash: the ingredients of a happy and meaningful life

Miguel Villagra, MD

Finance

December 28, 2022

I recently came across a few videos, notes, and books from Jim Rohn (Tony Robbins’s mentor), and I found so much timeless wisdom. Take note that the book, 7 Strategies For Wealth and Happiness, was released in 1985.

Let’s start with what I consider one of the best definitions of success: “It’s the steady, measured progress toward a goal and the achievement of a goal. Success is both an accomplishment …

Physicians are masterful at hiding. It’s part of the training.

Susan Hart Gaines

Conditions

December 28, 2022

Dr. Dominic Corrigan appeared to have it all.

He’d wanted to be a doctor since he was young.

So he worked hard, got into med school, took out a loan and did what it took to realize his dream.

“I was high functioning, upwardly mobile, respected specialist leading a department, doing international research, sitting on charity boards and the PTA,” says Corrigan — a pseudonym for the founder of an international doctors-for-doctors support …

A national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

December 27, 2022

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

“I acknowledge that many problems currently plague our country. However, hunger, food insecurity, and poor health are national priorities that require an immediate and robust response. The Biden-Harris Administration’s hunger, nutrition, and health strategy answers the call …

Myths and misconceptions about virtual primary health care

Geoff Rutledge, MD, PhD

Tech

December 27, 2022

Virtual primary care, unlike virtual urgent care, involves doctors who take the time to get to know their patients, creating (and nurturing) trusted doctor-patient relationships. Virtual primary care requires that doctors be consistently available for providing ongoing care to their patients.

Can doctors who meet their patients via video form an effective doctor-patient relationship, and does that relationship lead to appropriate and needed primary care?

The answer is a resounding “yes” on …

Think you aren’t a part of the destruction of the medical profession? Think again.

Curtis G. Graham, MD

Physician

December 27, 2022

As apparent as it may be to the predators of the medical profession, physicians themselves, thinking about the future of what the medical profession will be like by 2040, have yet to understand how they continue to be astonishingly complicit in the upcoming radical changes in health care and the medical profession.

You and I know that all physicians in our nation, especially those in clinical medical practice, have been brainwashed …

Working through a pandemic and watching the health care system crumble around me

Anonymous

Physician

December 27, 2022

The first dying patient I saw as a medical student was a man newly diagnosed with lung cancer, a chronic smoker with now oxygen-dependent COPD. In rounds, our medical team stopped outside his room, and the learned men and women pontificated about what to do next with the man. Chemo? Radiation? Both? I pretended to listen and rubbed my chin with feigned discernment, trying to understand the conversation like any …

A physician’s postpartum depression [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

December 26, 2022

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

“I may be practicing the art of repression and washing myself of any speck of contamination that would take me back to the state from which I have come very far. My suffering of the past, today, …

The time is ripe for virtual care solutions in COPD

Brian Gelbman, MD

Conditions

December 26, 2022

There’s a burgeoning crisis taking hold in the COPD management space; there are simply not enough pulmonologists, respiratory therapists, or pulmonary rehabilitation facilities to treat the growing number of COPD patients. This has left our field with an urgent window of opportunity to implement digital innovation into traditional treatment paradigms. Ironically enough, it was a respiratory disease that led to a global pandemic more than two years ago, which …

A physician shares his financial mistakes

Varun Verma, MD

Finance

December 26, 2022

Physicians often make mistakes when it comes to their personal finances and wealth-building strategy. We are human, after all. Private forums, blogs, and podcasts are filled with horror stories of physicians being scammed into buying expensive whole-life insurance, having disability insurance that didn’t include own-occupation coverage, and being steered toward high-fee investment vehicles by financial advisors. There are also countless situations, such as messy divorces, the risks of doing business …

The key to reversing the aging process

Michael Day, MD

Physician

December 26, 2022

There is no escape from our ultimate decline and death. The sooner we accept and embrace that reality, the freer we are to live life to the fullest now. So when I speak of reversing the aging process, I’m really referring to reversing the acceleration. If you recall the Newtonian physics from your high school physics class, acceleration is the velocity …

Read more…

The key to reversing the aging process

Building individual health equity [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

December 25, 2022

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

“Building individual health equity starts with a commitment to price transparency. The current system favors a broader, value-based model that does not require individual fees for services. Resources are allocated based on outcomes and are dependent on …

What’s the sense of having a living will if it’s not honored?

Althea Halchuck, EJD

Conditions

December 25, 2022

‘This victory ensures that advance planning documents are legally enforceable and will be respected by doctors; if they are not, individuals can hold providers accountable for violating their health care decisions.”
– Greenberg decision, 2022

Dr. Gerald Greenberg was a New York dentist when in 2010, he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. In 2011, he executed a living will stating the medical staff was to provide comfort measures only and no medical …

The vampire, phlebotomy, and advocating for my care

Emily Raffensberger

Conditions

December 25, 2022

Every five weeks, I see a different vampire from the phlebotomy and give this collective of blood-suckers consent to take my blood. The crimson-filled, turquoise-capped vacutainer is destined for analysis to see how fast my blood coagulates. If the vampires read my chart, they would see the graph showing values dating back to 2015, marking my third open-heart surgery when I got my mechanical aortic valve. My lab testing is …

Can Medicare advance directives be simple?

Kevin Haselhorst, MD

Physician

December 25, 2022

Consider Medicare enrollment with the end in mind. In case of emergency, do seniors prefer medical care or holistic care? Might they designate a medical power of attorney or a merciful power of attorney? Do they oblige CPR or sign a DNR order?

The JAMA Network just published Death and End-of-Life Care in Emergency Departments in the U.S. This retrospective cohort study concludes that,

Robust systems of emergency care …

Read more…

Can Medicare advance directives be simple?

Being a physician and a son at the same time [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

December 24, 2022

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

“As we continue this journey as a family in what will likely be an even more challenging six months ahead, the last six months have provided lifelong lessons. Equipped with these learnings, a new exciting professional opportunity …

The solution to America’s primary care shortage is direct primary care

Sara Pastoor, MD

Physician

December 24, 2022

Primary care in the United States is on the brink of collapse. Primary care providers suffer existential burnout, are the lowest compensated among all medical specialties, and there is a crisis-level shortage of primary care physicians, especially in health professional shortage areas. Despite strong evidence linking primary care (unlike any other medical specialty) to a better quality of life, longer life expectancy, better patient experience, and lower total …

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