KevinMD.com

The gender pay gap isn’t just about what she chose

Megan E. Paskitti, MD

July 4, 2026Jul 4, 2026

Every discussion about the gender pay gap in medicine eventually comes back to the same explanation: Women choose different specialties, different schedules, or jobs with more flexibility. Some of that is obviously true. But I've never thought it explained the…

Even when researchers account for specialty choice, hours worked, and practice setting, women physicians still tend to …

How fear of the stock market quietly costs doctors a million dollars [PODCAST]

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

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Doctors spend over a decade training and then quietly leave a fortune on the table when they handle their own money. In this episode, economics professor Hernan Moscoso Boedo explains why high income and years of schooling do not make physicians good investors. He compares the way doctors avoid the stock market to the way some people distrust vaccines, not …

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Why billing can make or break a new practice

Tagai Musaev, MD

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

When I finished residency in New York and moved to Hawaii, I spent a couple of years in an established practice before deciding to go out on my own. The reasons were probably the same ones many physicians consider independent practice in the first place: autonomy, the ability to shape the patient experience yourself, and the opportunity to build something that reflects how you actually want to practice medicine.

Two years …

Chronic pain management: Match the treatment to the cause

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

Chronic pain affects millions and demands a nuanced, individualized strategy. Providers draw from training and comfort zones, but the scientific literature supports a multimodal framework that integrates pharmacological, rehabilitative, psychological, and interventional options. No single modality universally outperforms others. Outcomes improve when treatments target the underlying pain generator, whether nociceptive, neuropathic, inflammatory, or vertebrogenic, while considering patient-specific factors like comorbidities and functional goals.

Pharmacological management

Opioids provide potent analgesia for certain …

Adaptation to illness matters as much as the diagnosis

Timothy Lesaca, MD

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

Picture two patients seated in the same waiting room, hearing the same diagnosis from the same physician on the same day. From that moment, their lives diverge, each setting out on a journey shaped by individual choices, relationships, and ways…

For one patient, the diagnosis becomes a consuming shadow. Every ache signals a smaller world. Fear and anger begin to strain relationships that were once strong. Work no longer …

Narinder Singh Parhar, MD

Knee osteoarthritis in women may begin with childbirth

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

Every physician has seen it. A healthy young woman gives birth, recovers from the immediate demands of pregnancy and childbirth, and returns to the responsibilities of work and family. Years later, often decades later, she presents with chronic knee pain,…

Every physician has seen it.

A healthy young woman gives birth, recovers from the immediate demands of pregnancy and childbirth, and returns to the responsibilities of work and family. Years later, often decades later, she presents with chronic knee pain, hip discomfort, lower back pain, or declining mobility. Eventually, some of these women progress to knee replacement surgery.

We usually regard these events as unrelated. Perhaps they are not.

The question deserves greater …

A gene therapy is rewriting Huntington’s disease

Marc Arginteanu, MD

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

As someone who has spent decades peering into skulls and pondering the fragile machinery inside, I have seen firsthand how our gray matter can falter under the weight of time, genetics, and disease. In my world as a neurosurgeon, the brain is the ultimate paradox: a brilliant, three-pound masterpiece capable of infinite consciousness, yet completely vulnerable to the slightest microscopic flaw.

There is perhaps no greater testament to this vulnerability than …

Why patients with unexplained symptoms go unheard

Tomislav Doslic

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

In 2020, during a period of severe insomnia, I took one drop of CBD oil hoping it would help me sleep. At the time, CBD was described everywhere as natural, gentle, and safe. I had read stories about people using it for sleep, anxiety, and pain. I was desperate for rest, but I was also cautious. I did not take a large dose. I took one drop.

What followed changed my …

Kirsten Engel, MD & Medha Tripathi

Guardianship and hospice care fail dying patients

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

His dimly lit room is quiet except for the hum of the monitor. "Mr. L" is alone, lying flat on his back in a slightly inclined bed, eyes squeezed shut, hands raised in the air as immobile fists. He has…

His dimly lit room is quiet except for the hum of the monitor. “Mr. L” is alone, lying flat on his back in a slightly inclined bed, eyes squeezed shut, hands raised in the air as immobile fists. He has not spoken in weeks. He has not moved much voluntarily, aside from the hand positions that are reminiscent of his passion for boxing. The medical team calls it catatonia, …

Why hospital food is failing patients who need to heal

Nell Choi & Scott Choi, MD

July 3, 2026Jul 3, 2026

When I first learned of chef and food activist Alice Waters and her farm-to-school initiative, I could see how programs that connect children to fresh local food can influence how they interact with their meal. Schools were no longer places where typical cafeteria-style lunches were served; they became places where students learned how food and health were connected.

I began to wonder why that idea stops at schools.

As a chronic disease …

Why physicians stay in jobs they could afford to leave [PODCAST]

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

Most physicians who feel stuck in a job could actually afford to leave. They just can't stomach what the worst week might look like. Stanley Liu, cardiologist and fiduciary financial planner, discusses the KevinMD article "Physician career choices come down…

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Most physicians who feel stuck in a job could actually afford to leave. They just can’t stomach what the worst week might look like. Stanley Liu, cardiologist and fiduciary financial planner, discusses the KevinMD article “Physician career choices come down to risk tolerance.” You will hear the gap between risk capacity (what your finances can actually absorb) and risk …

The night I almost diagnosed grief as mental illness

Dr. Loshi Rajen

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

At two in the morning, grief looked like psychosis. I remember being irritated before I even saw her. At the time, I was working back home in Malaysia. The emergency department fluorescent lights were too bright, my head heavy with…

At two in the morning, grief looked like psychosis.

I remember being irritated before I even saw her. At the time, I was working back home in Malaysia. The emergency department fluorescent lights were too bright, my head heavy with interrupted sleep, the air-conditioning turned low enough that the corridors felt vaguely refrigerated. Someone from the emergency department had telephoned psychiatry on call (me) requesting an urgent review of an elderly …

The home gym built for doctors with no time

Tonal Team

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

This article is sponsored by Tonal. The problem was never that doctors do not understand the value of strength training. It is that the schedule does not leave room for it. The day starts before dawn and ends long after…

This article is sponsored by Tonal.

The problem was never that doctors do not understand the value of strength training. It is that the schedule does not leave room for it. The day starts before dawn and ends long after the last note is signed. Between back-to-back patients, charting, and …

Bearing witness in medicine begins after time of death

Jasmine Umana, MD

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

"Time of death, 17:49." "Let's pause for a moment of silence." Stillness settles over the room. What had been a flurry of activity becomes something different. Something reverent. Sixty seconds pass. "Thank you." There is a collective exhale, followed by…

“Time of death, 17:49.”

“Let’s pause for a moment of silence.”

Stillness settles over the room. What had been a flurry of activity becomes something different. Something reverent. Sixty seconds pass.

“Thank you.”

There is a collective exhale, followed by a harsh realization. We must now move into cruel acceptance, into a place where hope no longer lives. With two words, I have ushered in a new reality.

A reality in which a mother lost …

Physician finance

Immigrant physicians can do more than practice medicine

Harsha Moole, MD

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

I arrived in the United States from India with one goal: become an excellent physician. That was the entire plan. Get through residency. Pass your boards. Build a clinical reputation. Publish research. Maybe land a faculty position at an academic…

For immigrant physicians, the path is narrower than most people realize. You don’t have a family network in American medicine. You don’t have alumni connections …

American Medical Women's Association & Eliza Lo Chin, MD, MPH

Why psychiatric overdiagnosis fails the students who suffer

Richard A. Lawhern, PhD

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

On June 29, 2026, psychologist Adam Omary published a landmark observation in the Boston Globe, titled "The disability accommodation trap on college campuses." As he observed: "It was well-intentioned when the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended in 2008 to…

On June 29, 2026, psychologist Adam Omary published a landmark observation in the Boston Globe, titled “The disability accommodation trap on college campuses.” As he observed:

“It was well-intentioned when the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended in 2008 to include mental health conditions and learning disabilities as eligible for accommodations. But in practice, it created incentives for overdiagnosis. As The Harvard Crimson reported in December, the share of …

Drugs and prescribing

What is the Medicare GLP-1 Bridge program?

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

As our understanding of obesity as a chronic disease has evolved, one paradox has been the ongoing barriers to accessing effective therapeutics for this condition, an approach vastly different from the way we treat other chronic diseases like heart disease,…

Thankfully, that era has ended, and in July of this year, Medicare will begin covering access to GLP-1s for the treatment of obesity.

Why is this important for …

Can emotional regulation in medicine reduce errors?

Deborah Rozman, PhD

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

Health care professionals are trained to diagnose, decide, and act under pressure. Yet one of the most important factors influencing clinical judgment, patient trust, and resilience is often overlooked: emotional self-regulation. Emotional regulation is not just a personal wellness practice…

Emotional regulation is not just a personal wellness practice that clinicians might pursue outside work to reduce stress or improve work-life balance. Today, it is increasingly being recognized as an essential clinical competency to practice, to reset, and to renew …