The rise of at-home hormone tests: a double-edged sword for patients

Conditions
January 12, 2025

At-home hormone testing kits have surged in popularity, offering individuals unprecedented access to tools they believe will help them understand their bodies. Marketed as convenient, empowering solutions to monitor fertility and general hormone health, these tests may seem like a valuable resource at first glance. However, the reality is far more complex. In many cases, these kits create confusion, unnecessary stress, and even lead to harmful interventions.

While the promise of …

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Health care predictions 2025: What’s next for AI, access, and home care

Physician
January 12, 2025

I’ve taken a little writing break as I turned off news to preserve my mental health after the election. As 2024 limps to a close, I look forward to a fresh start in 2025 with a few of my own crystal ball predictions of what’s to come in American health care.

Accessing primary care will continue to be a challenge, not just in rural communities but in big cities too. Telehealth …

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Why dermatology deserves respect: a medical student’s perspective

Education
January 12, 2025

As a medical student pursuing dermatology, I was disheartened at the recent Wall Street Journal article’s misrepresentation of dermatology. Describing the field as a superficial, cosmetically focused pseudo-science is a disservice to both dermatologists and the patients they treat; representations such as this one erase the true scope of dermatologic care. Based on the patients I’ve seen so far, dermatology and its physicians deserve more respect.

Dermatologists perform cosmetic procedures …

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Navigating the ashes: Supporting emotional strength amid the Los Angeles wildfires

Conditions
January 11, 2025

As an employee assistance program (EAP) therapist at a hospital, I am often called upon to help people navigate the emotional fallout of life’s most challenging moments. The wildfires devastating Los Angeles bring a unique layer of grief, stress, and uncertainty to our community.

David Kessler, a leading voice on grief, emphasizes that loss is not limited to death—it is any change or …

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How health care boards can transform organizational culture and workforce development [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 11, 2025
YouTube video

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Explore the critical role of health care boards in shaping organizational culture, workforce development, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). Physician advocate and physical therapist Kim Downey and health care consultant Geoffrey …

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This perspective will change how physicians address pain and recovery

Conditions
January 11, 2025

I implore all physicians to watch the film Tipping the Pain Scale. Invited by a friend to view from the perspective of recovery, I accepted in support and out of curiosity for the proposed approach to the treatment of pain. As an osteopathic neuromusculoskeletal medicine physician, this is the chief complaint of many patients seeking care, often addressed with hands-on treatment considering structure and function and the unity of body, …

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Peer review case: a surgeon’s fight for due process

Conditions
January 11, 2025

We recently resolved a complex peer review case involving a surgeon in a Midwestern state. The case arose as the hospital began transitioning to an employed-physician model, seeking to phase out its non-employed, voluntary medical staff. Our client, a non-employed surgeon with privileges to treat patients at the hospital, was among those targeted in what appeared to be a strategic effort to remove voluntary non-employed physicians from the …

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Transform feedback into growth with the ARISE model

Education
January 11, 2025

I am going to ask you to do something, and I hope you’ll play along. Think back on your week. Did anyone tell you that you did something well or that you could tweak the way you did something just a bit? Did anyone pull you aside to say they would have communicated that diagnosis or performed an exam maneuver differently? I hope that you said “yes.” Good medicine depends …

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Personal financial planning shouldn’t be a taboo subject

Finance
January 11, 2025

Physicians face immense challenges, from demanding work schedules and administrative burdens to the emotional toll of patient care. Burnout, turnover, and even suicide are distressingly prevalent in the profession. While systemic changes to health care environments are essential, financial well-being is an often overlooked factor in mitigating these challenges. Personal financial education and planning resources should not be considered taboo but a vital component of physician well-being. When openly addressed, …

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How to make life-and-death decisions with confidence [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 10, 2025
YouTube video

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We explore the high-stakes world of life-and-death decisions in medicine with William O. Collins, an otolaryngologist and airway surgeon. Drawing from personal experiences, he shares the challenges of performing under pressure, the importance …

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You are already at the table: Letting go of perfectionism in health care

Conditions
January 10, 2025

A few years ago, I decided to pursue a PhD. Why … isn’t it obvious? Being a psychotherapist who helps health care professionals navigate burnout and imposter syndrome, raising three teenagers, and holding multiple certifications in everything from DBT to MBSR to CCISM wasn’t enough—or so I thought.

In my work, I help physicians, faculty, and other high-achieving professionals process the relentless pressure of their careers. I often explain that their …

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How slowing down and finding peace can transform your career

Physician
January 10, 2025

While a new year offers new beginnings, it’s not about scrapping everything and starting fresh. Instead, it means sitting still and quiet long enough to truly appreciate life lessons and use them as fuel for growth.

So, here’s what I’m taking from one year to the next.

Peace

In 2024 I learned that life’s events can shake you to your very core, and there’s little you can do to stop it. But when …

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Why the health care CEO murder reveals America’s broken system

Physician
January 10, 2025

I have been a primary care physician since 1994 and have been reflecting on the tragic murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. The crime stands as a stark reflection of the profound frustrations many Americans feel toward the current health care system, which have been escalating for as long as I can remember. While the act itself is abhorrent and indefensible, its occurrence sheds light on deep systemic issues that …

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The ER doctor who became the new PCP

Physician
January 10, 2025

I am a family physician by training, and I thank God every day for that foundation. About a decade ago, I transitioned to emergency medicine, thinking I’d left primary care behind. Back then, primary care problems—hypertension, diabetes, routine medication refills—would occasionally show up in the ER, but they weren’t the norm. Fast forward to today, and they’ve become a central part of my shift.

It’s not because people suddenly decided the …

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How a family caregiver saved my life during a rare medical crisis

Conditions
January 10, 2025

Americans heard a lot this campaign season about family caregivers. The federal government is making progress, but more needs to be done. I know about the importance of family caregiving; I’m alive today because a family caregiver advocated for me when I could not do that for myself.

At the age of 38, in January of 2005, I started having difficulty walking. My primary care doctor sent me to a neurologist, …

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Why older adults are skipping doctor visits and how we can change it [PODCAST]

Podcast
January 9, 2025
YouTube video

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Join us as we explore the challenges of health care non-compliance among older adults with gerontologist Michael Pessman. We discuss the underlying factors driving resistance to medical advice, the importance of rebuilding trust …

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Why practicing medicine is both like and unlike practicing law

Physician
January 9, 2025

The question is whether practicing medicine is like or unlike practicing law. Only those in distress come in search of physicians and lawyers. Thus, their clients need healing as well as protection from the ills in their innate systems or in the systems surrounding them. The absolute dependence or even surrender of those in need during times of need provides their physicians as well as their lawyers the moral high …

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Pay for performance and shared savings are good, but they’re not the solution

Policy
January 9, 2025

Think about every health care reform effort we’ve been working on for the last decade or two, including accountable care organizations (ACOs) and the value-based purchasing models from CMS. The vast majority of them use one or both of the following strategies in an attempt to financially reward providers for delivering higher value (it’s like they’ve realized that financial incentives need to be fixed!):

  • Quality bonuses: For providers who deliver …

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Losing control of how the health care system treats patients

Physician
January 9, 2025

Particularly over the last 10 to 20 years, medical care has been vertically integrated so that many of us—most of us—are now working for larger health conglomerates. As part of this transition, more and more of our management is professional, with MBAs or their health care equivalent, running our working environments and collecting our billings from which they generate our salaries.

The Economist, a British journal, tells us that in 2022, …

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CME Spotlights