Ten years. That’s how long I carried around this idea I just couldn’t seem to put into action. I wanted to speak openly about this tension I felt as both an academician and an ordained minister. Yes, this false notion that my academic life and my spiritual life had to run on separate tracks. Not only did I want to openly discuss this tension; I wanted to do something about …
Why faith and academia must work together
The names read like a roll call of Black excellence: congressman John Lewis, the civil rights icon who walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and helped change America; congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, the tireless advocate for justice who represented Houston for nearly three decades; Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul whose voice defined generations; reverend Dr. Calvin O. Butts III, the prophetic voice from Abyssinian Baptist Church who fought for …
Pancreatic cancer racial disparities
When I opened my dermatology practice 25 years ago, I used paper charts, a prescription pad, and a Dictaphone. Today, I use AI daily: for transcription, charting, and even reviewing complex labs. It’s certainly made my work more efficient.
But I’ve also seen something else: the erosion of trust between patients and physicians. I’m fortunate to practice independently, with the freedom to answer only to my patients, not a corporate boss. …
What AI can never replace in medicine
“Make America Healthy Again (MAHA).” Finally, something we can all agree on.
The new MAHA report with its pages of promises taps into something real, something we see daily in primary care practice: Many Americans feel unwell, unheard, and unprotected by the very institutions meant to support them. Compared to our peer countries, we live shorter, sicker lives, suicide rates are rising, and even our children are …
Why the MAHA plan is the wrong cure
Many people have become “burned out” on the word burnout. Many doctors do not resonate with the term, feeling it describes personal struggles, when systemic issues are the root cause of the challenges facing health care professionals. They offer “moral injury” as a more accurate description. Clinicians can experience either or both at any time during their career.
Recently speaking with Shari Morin-Degel, I appreciated her sharing that because she had …
Why burnout prevention starts with leadership
SGLT2 inhibitors have transformed care for people with type 2 diabetes. They not only lower blood sugar but also reduce cardiovascular events and slow the progression of kidney disease. Given these successes, many have asked whether the same benefits extend to people with type 1 diabetes (T1D).
The answer is not straightforward. In T1D, SGLT2 inhibitors remain off-label, and the biggest concern is the increased risk of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). Still, …
Are SGLT2 inhibitors safe for type 1 diabetes?
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Family nurse practitioner Erica Dorn discusses her article “ChatGPT in health care: Risks, benefits, and safer options.” In this episode, Erica explains how clinicians are experimenting with ChatGPT to help with HPI …
ChatGPT in medicine: risks, benefits, and safer documentation strategies [PODCAST]
In Minot, I practiced a kind of pediatrics no flowchart could predict: improvised, airborne, and often surgical. Minot didn’t always follow the flowchart. One night, a toddler arrived in the emergency room, inebriated. Her father had given her vodka for teething pain, never imagining she’d swallow it. She did. She stopped breathing. I called a code and began CPR, ordering a blood alcohol level (BAL) and routine labs. Her BAL …
My experiences as an Air Force pediatrician
A brilliant, like-minded cardiologist recently shared with me “A Reappraisal of the Lipid Hypothesis” by Dr. Robert DuBroff, published in The American Journal of Medicine. It should be required reading for every physician who has ever written “continue statin” without a second thought.
DuBroff’s analysis reviewed 29 randomized controlled trials of cholesterol-lowering therapy conducted after modern trial regulations were adopted. The results were quietly devastating:
Re-examining the lipid hypothesis and statin use
An excerpt from How I Know White People Are Crazy and Other Stories. Copyright © 2025 Dr. Jonathan Lassiter. Published by Legacy Lit, a Hachette Book Group company. Reproduced by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
According to Dr. James M. Stedman, a white male clinical psychologist from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, there was a shortage of [doctoral] internships as early as 1976. …
How the internship shortage harms Black students
Racial diversity impacts health care delivery. North American nations like Canada and the U.S. are multi-racial. The U.S. addresses equity via programmatic and regulatory levers layered on a fragmented financing system: Medicaid, the Office of Minority Health’s National CLAS Standards for culturally appropriate services, and targeted maternal and community health initiatives. Nonetheless, persistent racial gaps in insurance, access, and outcomes underscore the limits of non-universal coverage, with maternal mortality for …
How diverse nations tackle health care equity
Mrs. C is 80, frail, with heart failure and early dementia. The team has begun discussing an ICD. Her daughter wants “everything done.” The resident knows the evidence cold; he can recite the trial data, the ACC recommendations, and the mortality benefit. But he’s frozen at the bedside.
The gap we don’t talk about
Modern medical education does one thing brilliantly: It transmits knowledge. Today’s residents master more pathophysiology, more evidence, and …
What is practical wisdom in medicine?
In inpatient psychiatry, teams often face a familiar problem: The clinicians at the bedside see ongoing risk that warrants hospital-level care, while the payer’s reviewer concludes the stay is no longer “medically necessary.” The result can be frustration, rushed discharges, or days spent on the phone. Behind the scenes, costs mount; measured not just in dollars, but in readmissions, emergency department boarding, and clinician burnout. Physician advisors help resolve this …
Aligning psychiatric care and hospital costs
The Bay Area has become the epicenter of artificial intelligence, home to renowned startups and labs racing to prove AI’s power to transform our daily lives.
Just three months ago, California released its own Frontier AI Policy Report, commissioned by Governor Gavin Newsom, which warned that without stronger oversight and transparency, AI models threaten equity and accountability, especially in health care. Nowhere is this danger more urgent than in dermatology.
A …
The dangerous racial bias in dermatology AI
Is your baby’s safe sleep a privilege?
In my Bronx clinic, I often sit across from new families who are well-versed in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) safe sleep guidelines. Babies should sleep alone, on their backs, in a crib free of soft bedding and toys. Yet despite this knowledge, many parents, especially those who choose to exclusively breastfeed, face real-life barriers in following these recommendations. For single mothers and …
How pediatricians can address infant mortality in underserved communities
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Kidney transplant recipient Charlie Cloninger and nephrologist Nauman Shahid discuss their article “How early care saved my life from silent kidney disease.” Charlie shares his personal story of being diagnosed with kidney …
How early intervention and team-based care can change kidney disease outcomes [PODCAST]
John, a man in his early sixties, waited nine months to see me about memory problems. When he finally arrived, I had twenty minutes. Eighteen went to detective work, extracting fragments of history from conflicting accounts, piecing together months of decline from unreliable memories, and completing a paper-based subjective memory test. What should have been a full consultation of patient-focused care, was reduced to only a few hurried minutes at …
Why our health system fails chronic disease patients
This summer, my Facebook account was permanently “disabled.”
I had been helping another mother navigate a medical decision for her child, a young adult who is living with a degenerative condition. It wasn’t medical advice. It was empathy, drawn from my own lived experience as a medical mother, a certified coach, and years of teaching courageous communication at a medical school.
Meta AI had flagged the conversation as a violation of Community …
AI moderation of online health communities
As a physician, you are no stranger to complexity. From the first days of medical school to the years of long shifts in residency, you make high-stakes decisions every day. Yet many doctors tell us they feel too busy, or under-resourced, to give their money the same level of care.
That is where a Personal CFO helps. Just as a hospital relies on a chief financial officer to align budgets, risks, …
Why physicians need a personal CFO and how tax mitigation fits in
Not long ago, a patient came to my busy clinic holding her phone. She had recently watched one of my short educational videos on heart attack warning signs, in Bengali. She told me, “Doctor, I did not know women can have different symptoms than men. That is why I came in today.”
That heartfelt conversation might have truly saved her life. And it was made possible not inside a hospital, but …
Why doctors must fight misinformation online
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