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What a Nicaraguan village taught a U.S. doctor about true care

Physician

August 15, 2025

Each year, I leave behind the electronic health record, performance metrics, malpractice fears, and the ever-present hum of burnout—and lead a medical mission trip—this year to Nicaragua. Along with a team of fellow volunteers, I carry only what we can pack: a few stethoscopes, essential supplies, and the will to serve.

We set up clinics in makeshift church halls with tin roofs in …

ChatGPT in health care: risks, benefits, and safer options

Erica Dorn, FNP

Tech

August 15, 2025

As technology becomes increasingly embedded in clinical workflows, many health care clinicians are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help lighten the charting load. One of the most buzzed-about tools is ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that seems like it can do everything from planning your next vacation to California, analyzing the best applications for a job, to writing your History of Present Illness (HPI) for a diabetic patient.

Before …

The critical role of nurse practitioners in colorectal cancer screening

Elisabeth Evans, FNP

Conditions

August 15, 2025

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second-deadliest cancer in the U.S.; however, screening rates remain too low due to a combination of lack of awareness, patient fear, and health care system barriers. Many patients don’t realize they are at risk because early-stage CRC has no symptoms, making screening the only way to detect and prevent disease progression.

As frontline health care providers, nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician associates/assistants (PAs) are uniquely positioned …

How motherhood made me a better scientist [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 14, 2025

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

Physician coach and medical school professor Kathleen Muldoon discusses her article, “How motherhood reshaped my identity as a scientist and teacher.” She explores what it means to be a “mother scholar” in …

Public health under fire: Vaccine battle hits federal court

J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, MD

Physician

August 14, 2025

Well, that didn’t take long, did it?

Today’s “controversy du jour” is prevention in health care. More specifically, vaccines and their role in preventing disease, disability, and death while promoting health and lifespan.

Prevention is the mother’s milk of health care. It is core to reducing illness and disease. Sadly, the udders producing that milk are drying up quicker than you can shake a fist at what is happening before our very …

How mindful leadership transforms physician wellness

Jessie Mahoney, MD

Physician

August 14, 2025

The culture of medicine is shaped in quiet ways, by the way meetings begin, the pregnant pauses before a response, and the energy transmitted in emails sent and received. These seemingly insignificant experiences ripple outward, setting the tone for entire teams, shaping what is spoken and what is not, shaping what feels possible and what feels unsafe.

The culture of medicine is not an abstract force. It is built moment by …

How the quietly efficient physician can turn perception into power

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

Physician

August 14, 2025

In the bustling environment of modern health care, the loudest voices frequently attract the most attention. Yet, a special category of physicians who are less visible but no less significant exists: the efficient, quiet clinicians who are usually underestimated. This physician type blends high productivity with a calm demeanor, allowing skill and results to speak louder than words.

Underestimation can undermine leadership opportunities for quiet physicians because visibility may play a …

Are we repeating the statin playbook with lipoprotein(a)?

Larry Kaskel, MD

Conditions

August 14, 2025

In the late 1970s, a Japanese biochemist named Akira Endo discovered a compound from fungus that inhibited HMG-CoA reductase, the enzyme responsible for making cholesterol. It was an academic curiosity at the time. No one knew if lowering cholesterol would prevent heart attacks—it just lowered a number on a lab slip.

That compound eventually became lovastatin, and in 1987, Merck brought it to market with no proof of improved outcomes—only a …

Why our fear of AI is really a fear of ourselves [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 13, 2025

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

Physician executive Bhargav Raman discusses his article, “Why fearing AI is really about fearing ourselves.” He argues that the common doomsday predictions about artificial intelligence are a projection of our own human …

Why physicians with ADHD are burning out

Michael Carlini

Conditions

August 13, 2025

It is time we talk about a critical, yet often overlooked, factor contributing to physician burnout: attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), particularly in those with high IQs and a history of academic and professional success.

Many physicians, often driven and intellectually gifted, develop sophisticated coping mechanisms that mask their ADHD symptoms for years, even decades. Their high IQ can, paradoxically, compensate for executive function deficits, allowing them to excel in demanding environments like …

The heart was fine—but something deeper was wrong

Dr. Riya Cherian

Physician

August 13, 2025

Sometimes, the stethoscope doesn’t catch what the heart is really saying.

It was just another morning during my surgery posting. I was reviewing pre-op workups when I was asked to assist with the echo evaluation of an elderly woman scheduled for a routine procedure. Her echo report flashed across the screen: smooth curves, rhythmic contractions, and valves opening and closing like well-oiled gates. The left ventricular ejection fraction was over 60 …

Why more physicians are quietly starting therapy

Annia Raja, PhD

Conditions

August 13, 2025

It is happening more often than most people realize. The same physicians who seem unshakable in the OR or clinic, the ones who handle chaos without blinking, are quietly scheduling therapy appointments. Not because they have “hit rock bottom” or cannot do their jobs anymore, but because they are realizing they do not have to slowly carry it all alone. Nor can they sustain this level of burnout anymore.

As a …

Why nearly 800 U.S. hospitals are at risk of shutting down

Harry Severance, MD

Policy

August 13, 2025

Over the past several years, each time a periodic U.S. hospital closures report is released, the number failing financial stress tests and at extreme risk of closing rises. The number now approaches 800 nationwide.

Meanwhile, many project that the just-passed One Big Beautiful Bill will rapidly increase these closures and further degrade health care access for American citizens.

Touted reasons for accelerating hospital closures, especially impacting …

How federal actions threaten vaccine policy and trust

American College of Physicians

Conditions

August 13, 2025

How many times have we heard “Whatever you say doc, I know you will do right by me. You always have and I know you will.” Or, “What do you think, doctor? Do you think I should do this?” Or, …

The unfiltered truth about surviving emergency medicine residency with purpose

Dr. Rida Jawed

Physician

August 13, 2025

Emergency medicine residency: where the pager announces before your coffee cools, and your personal life takes a number far behind sepsis alerts and trauma activations. Amidst this storm, there’s an unexpected survival manual—not found in Tintinalli’s or Rosen’s, but in Mark Manson’s self-help book, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.

Manson argues that life’s meaning isn’t found in chasing positivity, but in embracing struggle, choosing your battles wisely, …

How to safely undergo IVF with von Willebrand disease [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

August 12, 2025

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

Renowned fertility specialist Oluyemisi (Yemi) Famuyiwa discusses her article, “When bleeding disorders meet IVF: Navigating von Willebrand disease in fertility treatment.” She explains that von Willebrand disease (VWD), the most common inherited …

Summer’s dark side: How not to dim your fun

Tami Burdick

Conditions

August 12, 2025

It’s all fun and games until your health becomes one big puzzle to solve, and little do many people know what risks and hazards might surround us during our favorite summertime activities. I learned this personally after what should have been an innocent business trip turned into a year-and-a-half nightmare for me after contaminated water made me sick. I contracted bacteria that led to a secondary chronic inflammatory breast disease. What …

Closing the diversity gap in Parkinson’s research

Vicky Chan

Conditions

August 12, 2025

When people think of Parkinson’s disease (PD), they often picture Michael J. Fox or Muhammad Ali, iconic figures who bravely shared their diagnoses. But the real face of Parkinson’s is much more diverse than what we see in the media, and the research that shapes our understanding of the disease has not caught up.

Despite affecting people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, …

Why primary care doctors are drowning in debt despite saving lives

John Wei, MD

Physician

August 12, 2025

I knew there was a cost when I chose to become a physician: The long hours, delayed gratification, the strained relationships. I could understand these things as familiar from my lived experiences. I knew there would be a financial burden, and having been raised by two immigrant parents, an electrician and a nurse, I was no stranger to the pressures of financial insecurity. I was fortunate too: my parents did …

Why boredom is good for your brain and health

Sarah White, APRN

Conditions

August 12, 2025

A few weeks ago, I heard Michelle Obama say something that stopped me in my tracks:

“We have to learn to be OK with the regular days. The in-between. The parts of life that aren’t exciting.”

I thought of my kids in the back seat during a long car ride, sighing dramatically, claiming they were “literally dying” of boredom. I thought of patients sitting in a waiting room with nothing but their …

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