KevinMD.com

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 …

Conditions and diseases

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?

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

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 …

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Conditions and diseases

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 …

Physician voices

Are physicians next in AI health care layoffs?

Felix Reyes, MD

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

Multiple news sources have recently pointed out massive layoffs in the technology industry due to artificial intelligence (AI) improvements that lead to job redundancy. During an interview with Jimmy Fallon, Bill Gates expressed a vision where in the future AI will replace health care providers and other service professionals. A sentiment that is shared throughout the tech industry.

In health care, the first wave of AI-related workforce adjustment has …

Physician voices

Universal health care after a calling became a job

Banu Symington, MD

July 2, 2026Jul 2, 2026

I think the battle for health care is lost. It started with HMOs in the 1980s and 1990s, which turned doctors into assembly-line workers. It got worse with the supposedly protective measure of work-hour restrictions, further turning a "calling" into…

I think the battle for health care is lost.

It started with HMOs in the 1980s and 1990s, which turned doctors into assembly-line workers. It got worse with the supposedly protective measure of work-hour restrictions, further turning a “calling” into a “job.” That well-intended change had several unintended consequences. It shifted the applicant pool for medical school toward people who wanted to clock out at 5 p.m. A sense of responsibility …

The Podcast by KevinMD

When local doctors disappear, patients pay the price [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

A patient with a dying leg won't drive 20 miles for care. In Devin Zarkowsky's town, that's not a hypothetical. Vascular surgeon Devin Zarkowsky runs a solo office-based practice in a San Diego County town where peripheral arterial disease patients…

Listen on Spotify · Apple Podcasts

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A patient with a dying leg won’t drive 20 miles for care. In Devin Zarkowsky’s town, that’s not a hypothetical. Vascular surgeon Devin Zarkowsky runs a solo office-based practice in a San Diego County town where peripheral arterial disease patients had nowhere local to go, and Jason McKitrick is the executive director of the Office-Based Facility Association. They discuss the …

Physician voices

Falls, syncope, and the orthostatic hypotension we miss

Jerome Lisk, MD, MBA

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

Last week a patient came in after his third ER visit in four months. Dizziness, near-syncope, and two falls. He has Parkinson's disease and has been on carbidopa-levodopa for six years. His blood pressure in my office was 128/82 sitting.…

Last week a patient came in after his third ER visit in four months. Dizziness, near-syncope, and two falls. He has Parkinson’s disease and has been on carbidopa-levodopa for six years. His blood pressure in my office was 128/82 sitting. Completely normal.

That number told me almost nothing.

What I needed was his blood pressure lying down and again after standing for three minutes. I needed the reading he took at home …

Health policy

Private equity is reshaping concierge medicine

Dana Y. Lujan, MBA

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

Nobody is asking this out loud. They should be. Consider any mid-sized American city. A physician shortage that predates the pandemic. A growing population. Enough employer density to attract outside capital. A physician opens an independent concierge or DPC practice.…

Nobody is asking this out loud. They should be.

Consider any mid-sized American city. A physician shortage that predates the pandemic. A growing population. Enough employer density to attract outside capital. A physician opens an independent concierge or DPC practice. The panel fills. The model works. The relationship medicine covenant holds.

Then the room changes.

Around 63 percent of physician transactions in 2023 were attributable to a PE firm or their portfolio …

Physician voices

The difficult patient in the ER is often the sickest

Veronica Bonales, MD

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

As an emergency medicine physician, we've all had that hysterical patient. The one that comes in during a busy shift grabbing at their head, their chest, their abdomen. Yelling out that they are in pain as they roll by. You…

As an emergency medicine physician, we’ve all had that hysterical patient. The one that comes in during a busy shift grabbing at their head, their chest, their abdomen. Yelling out that they are in pain as they roll by.

You know the one. They make the nurses’ eyes roll. They add to an already chaotic scene. Other patients stop to watch as the gurney passes.

You debate how long you’re going to …

Physician voices

The hidden curriculum no residency teaches

Chinyelu E. Oraedu, MD

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

"There are moments in medicine that transform a medical graduate into a physician." Every July, thousands of newly graduated physicians begin residency. They arrive with crisp white coats, fresh medical degrees, and years of scientific knowledge. But July 1 is…

“There are moments in medicine that transform a medical graduate into a physician.”

Every July, thousands of newly graduated physicians begin residency. They arrive with crisp white coats, fresh medical degrees, and years of scientific knowledge. But July 1 is more than the first day of residency. It is the start of a professional and personal transformation.

There is another curriculum, however, that receives far less attention. It has no syllabus, no …

Physician voices

Automation bias is the new medical error

Duane Penshorn, MD

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

In 1999, researcher Dr. Kathleen Mosier placed 25 experienced pilots in a high-tech flight simulator. Her goal was to measure their response to inaccurate automated alerts. When cockpit instruments indicated an engine fire, the protocol was to verify the condition with other sensors. Instead, every one of the 25 pilots shut down the affected engine, responding to the false positive warning, an error of commission. In another scenario, the simulated …

Conditions and diseases

Why I hesitate to sign ADHD accommodation forms

Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

Every year, my desk fills with increasingly complex paperwork. School systems, testing boards, and corporate human resources departments request formal validation to grant specific accommodations, most commonly extended time or modified environments, for individuals diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.…

This hesitation does not stem from skepticism about the condition itself. …

Physician voices

Bearing witness in medicine before my voice goes quiet

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

I am approaching a period of my life marked by multiple surgeries, procedures that may limit my voice for a time, or perhaps silence it altogether. I do not mention this to invite sympathy. I mention it because bearing witness requires speaking while one still can. It requires naming the truth before the body quiets, before recovery reshapes the days ahead, before the opportunity to speak freely is interrupted by …

Social media in medicine

Why real medical experts must become medical influencers

Elizabeth Agyeman Prempeh, MD

July 1, 2026Jul 1, 2026

We live in a world of over 5 billion global internet users, all connected in ways we have never seen before. We get to see the most secretive parts of people's private lives: their morning routines, their shower routines, and…

We live in a world of over 5 billion global internet users, all connected in ways we have never seen before. We get to see the most secretive parts of people’s private lives: their morning routines, their shower routines, and their “Day in the Life” vlogs.

Yet, for decades, the daily work of a doctor remained a hidden mystery, at least to anyone outside the medical world. It wasn’t like a …

The Podcast by KevinMD

How immersive travel can reshape identity and habits [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

June 30, 2026Jun 30, 2026

Listen on Spotify · Apple Podcasts

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A week off does not fix burnout. The same problems are waiting when you get home, and the same person is walking back into them. Stacey Funt is a radiologist who runs a boutique wellness adventure travel company, mostly for women in their 40s through 60s, including a high share of physicians. She discusses the KevinMD article “Why immersive …

Physician voices

From military to medicine, the mindset that follows you

Vikram Madireddy, MD

June 30, 2026Jun 30, 2026

The uniform changed, but the mindset never really left. Long before I stepped into hospitals in London or research labs in Tokyo, I wore Army green in training exercises across New York as a medic in the U.S. Army. At…

The uniform changed, but the mindset never really left.

Long before I stepped into hospitals in London or research labs in Tokyo, I wore Army green in training exercises across New York as a medic in the U.S. Army. At the time, I did not know that many of the lessons shaping me there would later define how I approached medicine.

People often assume military training is primarily about aggression, toughness, or …

Physician voices

Administrative harm is the burnout we don’t measure

Jeffrey Shuhaiber, MD

June 30, 2026Jun 30, 2026

As physicians, regardless of our specialty, we share a singular, defining orientation: a fiduciary commitment to the patient sitting in front of us. Whether we are operating on a heart, managing complex diabetes, or counseling a family through a life-altering diagnosis, our patients grant us extraordinary latitude. They do so based on a deeply held understanding that our clinical judgment will be exercised solely in their best interests. This sacred …

Physician voices

The danger of worshipping resilience in medicine

Anthony Grandelis, MD

June 30, 2026Jun 30, 2026

The longer I've practiced medicine, the more uncomfortable I've grown with the word resilience. I'm a physician, and I am also a person in long-term recovery from addiction. Both of those identities have shaped everything about how I move through…

The longer I’ve practiced medicine, the more uncomfortable I’ve grown with the word resilience.

I’m a physician, and I am also a person in long-term recovery from addiction. Both of those identities have shaped everything about how I move through health care, and nowhere do they collide more sharply than in the culture of resilience that medicine holds so dear. We praise it like a virtue. We stitch it into wellness …

Health policy

What’s missing from the tobacco harm reduction debate

Edward Anselm, MD

June 30, 2026Jun 30, 2026

Anyone who uses social media is likely to encounter messages about tobacco harm reduction. This information comes from multiple sources with varying and overlapping agendas. At one end of the spectrum, the World Health Organization and most public health authorities emphasize the risks associated with nicotine in all forms. Their primary concern is preventing nicotine initiation among adolescents and young adults, thereby reducing future tobacco-related disease. At the other end …

Real physician voices, twice a week

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