How AI, animals, and ecosystems reveal a new kind of intelligence

Tech
July 26, 2025

As a surgeon, I’m trained to make decisions quickly—based on anatomy, evidence, and pattern recognition. But outside the OR, I’ve been thinking more deeply about something abstract yet everywhere: intelligence. What is it, really? And who or what gets to be called “intelligent”?

We often associate intelligence with humans—or more specifically, with traits like memory, logic, and verbal reasoning. The smarter someone is, we assume, the more they think like us. …

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What it really means to be lucky: a doctor’s story of survival and resilience

Physician
July 26, 2025

This past St. Patrick’s Day my daughter and I were listening to John Lennon’s Luck of the Irish. She wondered aloud whether people realized the phrase was meant to be ironic. Lennon certainly did, singing, “If you had the luck of the Irish, you’d be sorry and wish you were dead …” With Irish-born grandparents and Liverpool’s deep Irish roots, he understood the weight of the phrase, eight hundred years …

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How truth depends on where you stand and what you see

Physician
July 26, 2025

As yet another tragic chapter unfolded in the intractable and ever-escalating Iran-Israel conflict, I found myself in the midst of conversations, intense, impassioned, and sometimes uncomfortably raw. The participants weren’t diplomats or scholars. They were ordinary people, men and women, brown and white, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, all fiercely devoted to their own perspectives, each convinced they were defending not merely an opinion but the truth.

One particularly striking …

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The case for a standard pre-med major in U.S. universities

Education
July 25, 2025

Throughout my academic career I learned that medicine can be pursued through any major. Although the traditional path is through biology, as long as the correct prerequisites are taken, you are eligible to apply. As time went on, I began to think to myself, “Why isn’t there a common pre-med major?” This major would set students up to conquer the rigorous curriculum of medical school. Additionally, if students decide not …

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A physician employment agreement term that often tricks physicians

Finance
July 25, 2025

Lately, I have seen a few instances where physicians have been tricked by a term in their physician employment agreement that clearly does not mean what the physician thinks it means.

The most recent example came when I was negotiating a physician employment agreement, and the physician suggested verbiage concerning her scheduling. The physician suggested that we ask for language that the employer would develop a clinical schedule “after consultation with …

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Why patients and doctors are fleeing flagship hospitals

Physician
July 25, 2025

In the once-venerable corridors of our state’s flagship academic hospital, a slow-motion disaster is unfolding. White patients — yes, white patients, because that’s who’s leaving — are abandoning ship, hightailing it to the quieter, politer hospitals in “white” suburbs. Why? Because the “uniformly Mexican” staff — medical assistants, front desk drones, and nursing staff — treat customer service like it’s a foreign concept. And frankly, it is. Mexico isn’t exactly …

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The hidden reason your vacations never feel like enough

Physician
July 25, 2025

I’ve taken some amazing vacations. Seriously—scenic, memorable, cool stuff. Travel has always been a top financial priority for me. It felt like one of the few things in life that reliably gave me joy and perspective.

And in many ways, I still believe in the value of taking time away. But over the past year, my perspective on why I take vacations—and what I’m actually hoping to gain—has changed in some …

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Confronting the return of measles and vaccine misinformation [PODCAST]

Podcast
July 24, 2025
YouTube video

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

Infectious disease physician Janet A. Jokela discusses her article, “Measles is back: Why vaccination is more vital than ever.” Recounting her own experience diagnosing a case in the 1990s, Janet contrasts that …

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Institutional reporting systems discourage clinical honesty

Conditions
July 24, 2025

A few years ago, I said something in a meeting that made the air go still.

“People don’t actually feel safe filing ‘safe’ reports.”

I said it to a room full of leaders from the quality and safety team, the very people tasked with building trust and accountability. They didn’t argue. They just didn’t believe me.

They pointed to the anonymous portal. The reporting dashboard. The just culture training modules. They cited infrastructure.

I …

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How doctors can turn criticism into collaboration

Conditions
July 24, 2025

You’re in the OR. A colleague, maybe a resident, suggests a different approach. You’ve already considered it. Or maybe it’s not a great suggestion. Either way, it’s hard to hear. You feel your muscles tense and lean away from your colleague, avoiding eye contact. Defensiveness is a common and understandable dynamic.

A common dynamic

In the era of shared decision-making, physicians get all kinds of suggestions—not only from peers, but also from …

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Building trust in dyad leadership partnerships

Physician
July 24, 2025

What’s a dyad and how do I fit into it?

What do I do? These are the questions every new health care leader asks themselves, as I did, when they first join a dyad partnership. Although there has been much academic writing regarding leadership dyads in health care, with a macro focus on structure and accountability and implementation, there is a paucity of material on the practical aspects of a dyad …

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The hidden moral injury behind value-based health care

Physician
July 24, 2025

She works for a not-for-profit health system, but nothing about what she described to me felt charitable. A young physician, just a few years into her career, she’s already facing a choice that no doctor should ever have to make: protect her patients or protect the metrics that determine her employer’s paycheck.

The heart of the problem

This physician works under a value-based payment model. On paper, it sounds great: Pay doctors …

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Nurse-initiated protocols for sepsis: a strategic imperative for patient care and hospital operations

Conditions
July 24, 2025

Sepsis continues to pose a serious threat to patients and a significant challenge to hospital systems. Despite advances in awareness and clinical guidelines, delays in diagnosis and treatment remain common and costly. Sepsis is the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals and costs the U.S. health care industry $62 billion annually.

The ripple effects of sepsis extend far beyond the bedside, impacting everything from …

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From rejection to resilience: a doctor’s rise through the Caribbean route

Education
July 23, 2025

The memories are still raw: Stepping off the plane alone, unsure of what came next. Where was the campus? The car? A place to live? I didn’t know a soul. I was in a different country, surrounded by uncertainty.

There were moments I truly wondered if I’d make it. I was afraid I’d fail—that this dream might slip through my fingers. How could I study medicine on a tiny island and …

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Rethinking medical gatekeeping in the age of AI

Tech
July 23, 2025

The other day, I was deep in conversation with my co-founder, Aaron Patzer, reflecting on how we each approach health concerns in our personal lives. Despite my background in emergency medicine and his in tech, we had surprisingly similar medical information seeking habits: We both turn to large language models (LLMs), tap into our networks, and—when possible—avoid visiting a doctor.

What struck me wasn’t just our shared behavior, but how universal …

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Why physicians struggle with caregiving and how to cope with grace

Physician
July 23, 2025

As physicians, we are trained to care—for patients, colleagues, and our communities.

When it comes to caring for our own aging parents and ill family members, most of us find ourselves overwhelmed, overfunctioning, under-resourced, depleted, and isolated. More often than not, we find ourselves assigned the caregiving role—explicitly or implicitly—because we’re “the doctor in the family.”

We think our medical training should make caregiving easier. But the opposite is true. We know …

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How molecular discoveries are transforming preeclampsia prediction and care

Conditions
July 23, 2025

When reviewing poor maternal health outcomes in the U.S., it is clear we cannot keep doing the same thing and expect to make pregnancy safe and healthy for all. A new approach is needed that harnesses the power of molecular advances to bring precision medicine to pregnancy health. Preeclampsia, one of the most dangerous complications in pregnancy, is a disorder of high blood pressure that has eluded the ability to …

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Why agency and partnership are vital in modern health care

Physician
July 23, 2025

We often hear the phrase “practice what you preach.” As both a physician and a patient, I’ve learned that nowhere is this more important than in how we navigate health care.

Over the years, I’ve written about the importance of collaboration between physicians and patients. But as I’ve grown older and more frequently interact with the health care system, I’ve come to believe that good care rests on four essential elements:

How neuroplasticity offers hope for complex PTSD

Conditions
July 22, 2025

“It’s not just in your head.” For people living with complex PTSD (CPTSD), these words offer more than comfort—they offer scientific truth. Trauma doesn’t just scar the mind; it reshapes the brain. But so does healing.

The hidden epidemic of CPTSD

Unlike its better-known cousin PTSD, complex PTSD often emerges from prolonged, repeated trauma—domestic abuse, childhood neglect, trafficking, emotional captivity. And while DSM-5 only nods to it, millions silently live with its …

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