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Taking courage to heart and to the heart of medicine

Physician

April 9, 2022

Few individuals are called upon to be heroes like Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy who, in choosing to stay and fight a massive, invading army, faces a real possibility of imprisonment and death. This is true courage.

Within the medical profession, there are also wars to be fought that require true courage. One thinks of the late Dr. Paul Farmer, who worked tirelessly throughout his career to bring high-quality health care to …

New strategies are needed for mental health treatment [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 8, 2022

“Reducing the occurrence of comorbid mental and physical disorders will require an integrated model combining medical and behavioral health care services. The window of opportunity is open for health insurers and employers to invest in employee assistance programs and telehealth platforms and build on a newfound acceptance of mental health …

Take politics out of science and medicine

Anonymous

Policy

April 8, 2022

This month marks the 12th anniversary of Obamacare’s passing. Was it perfect? No. It was meant to be a starting block to cover a widening gap in the nation’s health equity. It became less effective because of direct attacks by politicians who then used the failures to point a finger back at President Obama for nothing other than party-line politics. The Affordable …

Losing my first patient

Allie Poles

Education

April 8, 2022

I had known AR for eight days before she passed away.

AR’s medical record was littered with phrases all too familiar in the field of medicine: she had “poor insight into the severity of her disease” and was “insisting on all resuscitation measures despite poor prognosis.” But quite frankly, I could not blame her. She had been diagnosed with metastatic gastric cancer, bilateral Kruckenberg tumors and additional metastases throughout her abdominal …

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Losing my first patient

The connection between sickle cell disease and socioeconomics

Ramandeep Kaur, MD

Physician

April 8, 2022

Two new treatments have emerged for sickle cell disease. One curative treatment is a bone marrow transplant, and the second treatment is a gene-based therapy undergoing clinical trials. While this is much-welcomed news for patients battling the disease, the medical profession still needs to address sickle cell disease’s socioeconomic and racial health care inequities.

Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease that alters and lowers red blood …

Primary care should be the center of gravity in health care [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 7, 2022

“If we want a more effective health care system, it needs to be re-engineered to revolve around the true center of gravity – the patient. We must involve patients early and often in the design of health policy, health technology, and health care ecosystems. We must reinvent health care payment …

Before taking Paxlovid, consider these drug interactions

Param Patel, PharmD

Meds

April 7, 2022

FDA and Health Canada recently approved Paxlovid as an oral treatment option for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 who are at high risk of progression to severe COVID-19. It is a combination drug containing nirmatrelvir/ritonavir. Nirmatrelvir works by binding to SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease to ultimately stop viral replication. Ritonavir does not have any antiviral activity against COVID-19 but increases concentrations of nirmatrelvir by decreasing its metabolism by CYP3A4 enzyme. Ritonavir is …

Will Biden’s State of the Union remarks revive prescription drug reform?

Hassaan Asif

Policy

April 7, 2022

My credit card hovered over the card reader at the pharmacy as I contemplated whether I should pay. Two hundred and eighty dollars and some change. For two EpiPens, each with 0.3 mg of epinephrine that could potentially save my life if I accidentally ate something with sesame seeds. At that moment, I realized that even I, as someone with good employer-based family health insurance, was being forced to make …

Why this medical student tutors

Michelle Ikoma

Education

April 7, 2022

Tutoring is the most selfish thing I do. This probably sounds counterintuitive, but let me explain.

To state the obvious, medical school is hard. You spend four years pushing yourself to the limit of your comfort zone. For two years, you cram more information into your brain than it can hold (and most of it leaks back out). Then for the next two years, you chameleon your way from one clinical …

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Why this medical student tutors

How a legal injustice changed this physician’s career [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 6, 2022

“I do not hesitate to share what I endured. I recognize that there is a code of silence that must be broken when one is involved in legal action. It is imperative that we speak out to patients, legislators, and other physicians against these types of injustices. The sense of …

Bring back CME conferences to exotic locations

Farhan S. Imran, MD

Physician

April 6, 2022

It was not too long ago, but it seems like decades when traveling for a CME conference was a routine part of being a physician as looking up articles on UpToDate or giving patients bad news. But like so many other things in life, the reality of CME conferences has changed.

Most training programs give allowance to physicians for CME conferences on a yearly basis. After training, you have to keep …

10 mistakes smart doctors make

Sofia Dobrin, MD

Physician

April 6, 2022

When most people think of physicians, they think of the class nerds or the smart kids who got all As and took honors classes and were on the debate and math teams, did the science Olympiad or won the spelling bee. They think of us as brighter and more intelligent than most of society.

But we are also just human beings who have the same flawed brains and make the same …

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10 mistakes smart doctors make

Is there such a thing as too much empathy?

Eve Makoff, MD

Physician

April 6, 2022

“What does it mean to be neighbors in the trenches?” I began a recent staff meeting at our medical group.

We’d just read a passage about the Christmas Truce between the Germans and the British in World War I. The troops found themselves so close together they could smell each other’s food, hear each other’s music. It was impossible not to pause the violence in a moment filled with so much …

Nurses are in need of racial healing [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 5, 2022

“Now more than ever, our profession needs to move toward racial healing. There is an urgent need for nursing to acknowledge its history of racism, boldly confront racism wherever it shows up, and address the racism that nurses witness when delivering care to those they serve. This will not happen …

The need for physician leaders for a better health care system

Tomi Mitchell, MD

Physician

April 5, 2022

Health care is a complex machine. With each passing year, it appears to get even more complicated. There’s an ever-increasing need to balance quality and cost between technology and humanity. These are competing needs, which are usually critical to health care delivery, as care professionals are faced with the often overwhelming paperwork and the need for hands-on patient-centered care.

There can be challenges in prioritizing one condition at the expense of …

Palliative care: Most doctors do not know how to talk to their patients

Anonymous

Physician

April 5, 2022

“If you don’t let us go home because of the vomiting, his time is running out … I don’t want him to be at a point where there is nothing else to do, and I don’t want him to go home at that point,” said J’s mom.

“Am I crazy to want to see this naturopathic doctor? He promised us he would cure our son of his cancer …”

“It is not …

How stigma and online trolls stopped an intervention that could save lives

Bonzo Reddick, MD, MPH

Physician

April 5, 2022

I came across an article a few weeks ago with the heading, “Biden administration denies funding handing out crack pipes to addicts to improve ‘racial equity.'” As similar articles came out across the United States and the United Kingdom, I was immediately bombarded with questions from friends and family members who were in disbelief that the government would do something as ludicrous as giving out crack pipes. …

Physicians and the weight of expectations [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

April 4, 2022

“What exactly is my obligation to medicine? Am I supposed to practice medicine forever? Is it my duty? Do I have to continue serving my patients, the hospital, and society because of these expectations?

The answer is simple: You get to decide. Most physicians I know love practicing medicine. It …

Stunning new medical conditions overlooked!

Janet E. Patin, MD

Conditions

April 4, 2022

This article is satire.

The DSM-5-TR came out in March with some shocking omissions. Here submitted are a few new conditions the next version might include:

Animaculism: the state of joy that comes from the care and companionship of nonverbal creatures, with subtypes for canine, feline, bovine, avian, piscine, exotic, and even serpentine.

Hyperfurrification: being covered in exogenous pet hair

Itchymaskanosis: an acquired hallucination, the sense of an invisible nose tickle as if from …

Mitigating perfectionism through self-compassion

Cathi Whaley, MD

Physician

April 4, 2022

At birth, our rudimentary brains have very few developed circuits. Through everyday experiences, we slowly develop simple circuits before the more complex circuits form. Our interactions with caregivers teach us words and shape our concepts, and we ultimately string concepts together into thoughts.

We have tens of thousands of thoughts every day, but many go unnoticed. Our brain utilizes an autopilot mode so that each day isn’t a completely new experience. …

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