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The unique agony of being a Black female doctor

Physician

November 3, 2021

It was as if my four-day-old daughter’s condition was not critical. It was as if I was not a clinician who could confidently assess and identify seizure episodes. It was as if there were no monitors blatantly showing critically low oxygen levels.

Nine long hours and still no response. I felt like I was begging for eternity. I had repeatedly approached the nurses’ station to get their attention and assess my …

Grieving our collective loss with compassion

Diana Londoño, MD

Physician

November 3, 2021

What can we learn as we experience turmoil, change, or as we grieve a loss? Is there something we can focus on to help us go through difficult times in our lives? This can be a minor occurrence in our life, or it can be what we have all lived through collectively during a global pandemic.

What can help us see what is beyond what we are experiencing now and let …

How medical training teaches doctors to be financially unhealthy [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

November 2, 2021

“We physicians must come to terms with the trauma caused by the financial insecurity built into our training and the ripple effect it has even after we finish training, both as a way to repair ourselves individually and as a way to assure that our profession survives.

The cost of medical …

How digital therapeutics can strengthen the provider-patient relationship and improve behavioral health outcomes

Benjamin Alouf, MD and Lara Jaradat, MD

Tech

November 2, 2021

Research shows that early intervention in mental health conditions is critical for achieving better outcomes. Left unaddressed, conditions tend to progress. The depression will worsen. The anxiety will escalate. The disorder can intensify to the point where a child or teen can’t function, won’t get out of bed, may start self-medicating – and the list goes on.

Even though it could change the trajectory of an adolescents’ mental health condition, providers …

Practicing medicine as a Deaf physician is an uphill battle. COVID makes it worse.

Carolyn Stern, MD

Physician

November 2, 2021

March 11, 2020, my nightmare began.

“Ready to switch?” asks my American Sign Language interpreter during an all-day virtual conference. Switching from speaker view to gallery view, I search for a different speaker’s interpreter among numerous attendees, pin her video, and switch back to speaker view. This interpreter updates me on what I missed during the transition.

I do this every half hour throughout the conference, peering through my reading glasses while …

Are collagen supplements good for you? A physician’s deep dive answer.

Ryan McCormick, MD

Physician

November 2, 2021

I was asked this question at least three times this week, so I think there must be something going around. It doesn’t help that a Kardashian with 140 million Instagram followers recently signed a deal to become an equity partner and global spokeswoman for a company selling collagen supplements. The global market for collagen-containing products was estimated at $300 million last year, and is projected …

How to heal and revitalize our beloved profession [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

November 1, 2021

“We have to heal ourselves first. That begins with caring for our own minds and bodies, and souls. It means not avoiding (as I did) caring for our own physical and especially our mental health. It means we must be a part of the lives of our families and loved …

America is failing primary care doctors

Jen Baker-Porazinski, MD

Physician

November 1, 2021

While the pandemic sparked a renewed (if only temporary) appreciation of the medical profession, this alone wasn’t enough to induce change in the system overwhelming them – a fact blatantly revealed to me this year at the annual conference of the American Academy of Family Physicians. I admit I was a little disappointed when the pandemic forced the location to be changed from sunny California to virtual. But, since I’d …

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America is failing primary care doctors

I will finish medical school and become a doctor — before I get scared

Sarah Heins

Education

November 1, 2021

The dusty gym is a blur in my peripheral vision as I grip the high bar tightly and swing downwards from a handstand. I slightly pike at my hips to avoid hitting the low bar behind me before recruiting my abdominal muscles to tap my legs through a transitional arch position and complete the circle around the bar. Just before I return to vertical, my hand slips. I feel the …

Family meals’ surprising power [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

October 31, 2021

“If you are encountering families with feeding concerns, I strongly encourage you to ask them if sitting down together for meals is part of their regular routine. The more prescriptive ‘eat this, not that’ or calorie counting model that has been traditionally used in medicine is clearly not working well. …

One unexpected way physicians invest like billionaires (and how you can too)

Masterworks

Finance

October 31, 2021

This article is sponsored by Masterworks, the art investment platform.

Updated March 15, 2022.

The Power Law dictates that 1% of the world’s population holds 45% of the wealth.

And they’re only getting richer thanks to the rise of consumer technology during the global health situation.

In fact, the total …

Tackling racial disparities in cancer care by creating new ways for institutions to operate

Joseph D. Stern, MD, PhD

Conditions

October 31, 2021

At 84, Emma Shuford found a lump in her breast. After a lumpectomy, she was diagnosed with locally aggressive breast cancer. Her doctors said it was treatable but she needed radiation to help stop it from growing.

At first, she refused. Because of her age and a chronic leg injury, she didn’t feel safe driving to the cancer center. The bus would take 90 minutes each way, and she couldn’t walk …

An un-apology: a physician’s breastfeeding isolation

Hannah Nordhues, MD

Physician

October 31, 2021

This article was written before COVID-19 social distancing recommendations.

I want to start off by saying that I fully know my breastfeeding journey is a success story. There are so many women who struggle with medical illness, latch issues, an unsupportive workplace, milk production, and more. I had initial struggles; but, largely, these were not my issues. In that way, I was fortunate. Mine is the story of learning to become …

Taking care of yourself during medical school [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

October 30, 2021

“Like some insidious conditions, feelings can fester. They can spread like cancer, and sap the spirit of nourishment until it starts to die, riddled with doubt and sensations of inadequacy. They can degrade the soul, as though it were suffering from a systemic inflammatory disease. But this progression, like many …

Formalized mentorship as a requirement for medical schools

Micaela Stevenson

Education

October 30, 2021

Mentorship is one of the cornerstones of growth as a clinician and student. Given that so much of medicine is learned outside of a classroom and through individual experiences, mentorship helps to clearly round out these experiences and help us grow as clinicians. I remember starting medical school and being told at every corner to look for mentors. I wanted to make sure that I was able to grow at …

Medicine is not a business: a poem

Drea Burbank, MD

Physician

October 30, 2021

Medicine is not a business
You fools.

Healing is your blueprint, activated
to complete itself.

A doctor does not broker it,
The best anyone can do is align you
With what you should be,
And stay out of the way.

(Like a teenager setting off an illegal firecracker.)

Mostly, you pay the doctor for the alignment,
And the nurse
To keep the doctor out of the way.

If you’re not ready,
to get on with the business of what you should be,
You come …

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Medicine is not a business: a poem

I bought into the stigmas about the mentally ill, until I became one of them [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

October 29, 2021

“Bipolar runs in my family, so I knew the harsh realities of this untreated illness. A family member faked his own death after a counterfeiting spending spree. My grandfather told people that I would die in a car accident, and he would take my body up to the mountain and …

Tomgirl and tomboy: Rethinking gender stereotypes [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

October 28, 2021

“How do we create a world where all of us can express our unique selves the way we choose without derisiveness and shame? I am not here to criticize the wonderful parents and caregivers who are reading this – they only love their children. Common sense must prevail. I only …

If the healers are sick, what happens to the rest of society?

Tomi Mitchell, MD

Physician

October 28, 2021

People often say health care professionals are often the worst patients. As health care professionals, we are well versed with what is needed to be healthy, but we struggle, like many other people, to consistently apply these principles.

Some reports indicate that as many as 50 percent of doctors experience symptoms of burnout, including emotional exhaustion, feel less enthusiastic about work, and lack personal accomplishment at some point during their career. …

Physician struggle with feelings of betrayal

Maire Daugharty, MD

Physician

October 28, 2021

We went into medicine to help people, and now we struggle with feelings of betrayal. We sacrificed so much. While our cohort in college went on to graduate and earn an income and start families, we continued with medical school, an all-in venture financially and personally, demanding all of our time, efforts, and attention. Then we trained. And trained some more. And then, finally, we went to work. We took …

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