Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Nationally recognized psychiatrist, internist, and addiction medicine specialist Muhamad Aly Rifai discusses his article, “How President Biden’s cognitive health shapes political and legal trust.” While carefully observing the ethical constraints of the …
Why we need a transparent standard for presidential cognitive health [PODCAST]
“This is Dr. Mohr.” I answered a number I didn’t recognize.
“It’s Irving,” said the frantic voice. “He collapsed. The paramedics are working on him now.”
“They’re doing compressions? Stop! Put the paramedic on the phone!”
My father-in-law, Irving, the stoic Danish-American Navy veteran, had been on hospice for 3 months. His POST (physician order for life sustaining treatment) form was on file with the hospice agency and his custodial care facility: DNR/DNI, …
How one man’s dying wish was denied by the health care system
It happens more often than people talk about: You go to the bathroom, and suddenly you notice red or brownish urine in the toilet bowl. Your heart skips a beat. Is it something you ate? Could it be serious? Should you wait or call your doctor?
If you ever see blood in your urine, don’t panic, but don’t ignore it either. That red color, whether it’s faint pink or dark like …
Don’t ignore hematuria: When to worry about blood in your urine
My children’s Montessori teacher lost her son to suicide several years ago. When I heard of her son’s death, memories came flooding back. I recalled Tom’s upper school project in which he presented a hoverboard. This inspired much reverence and awe in my son, who later attempted the same. Tom’s mother had tended to my daughter’s bumps and scrapes on the playground and helped her learn phonics. I gathered the …
How showing up teaches children about grief and empathy
There is a kind of silence in hospitals that no overhead page can interrupt. The silence after you have raised a concern, documented it, escalated, and nothing changes. Some physicians endure that silence for years. Some burn out. A few walk out, not in defiance of medicine, but in fidelity to what medicine was supposed to be. And when they do, we often call them disruptive, political, or unprofessional. But …
When conscience compels doctors to walk out
I have been fortunate to practice in several areas of medicine in my career. This has led me to triple board certification in family medicine, palliative medicine, and addiction medicine. I speak Spanish fluently, have a spotless record, and have dedicated my career to caring for underserved patients.
Despite this, after years of applying to prestigious health systems in a major city, I’ve never once been contacted for an interview in …
Physician hiring bias in one of America’s most progressive cities
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Gastroenterologist Anuj Vikrant Sharma discusses his article, “Fatty liver disease is no longer reserved for older adults.” He warns of a quiet epidemic of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), a serious liver condition …
Fatty liver disease in young adults [PODCAST]
Building health care AI pilots is easy; getting them to succeed at scale is a challenge.
According to a recent report from Bessemer Venture Partners, AWS, and Bain & Company, only 30 percent of GenAI health care pilots reach production, where an even smaller number will go on to be successful.
This is partly because many health care organizations are in “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” mode …
Why GenAI pilots fail in health care—and how to fix it
The end of my belief came on a fall night in 2011. I was driving to a suburban restaurant to give a paid dinner talk on Niaspan for Abbott Labs. It was a typical night for a physician speaker—slide deck polished, HDL-cholesterol optimism intact. Then the results of the AIM-HIGH trial came over public radio. Niacin, when added to a statin, had no cardiovascular benefit. My world cracked. I never …
Confessions of a lipidologist in recovery: the infection we’ve ignored for 40 years
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Health law attorney Dennis Hursh discusses his article, “Why hospitals are quietly capping top doctors’ pay.” For nearly 40 years, he has reviewed physician employment agreements and reveals a shocking recent trend: …
How hospitals use salary caps to suppress physician wages [PODCAST]
My name is Ava Kaufman, and my doctors didn’t think I would be alive today. I defied the odds after being listed for – and receiving – an experimental heart transplant.
Before my transplant, I was a healthy mother and businesswoman who loved to dance. I randomly noticed a rash appearing on my hands and shins, so I went to the dermatologist. They told me that I had psoriasis, but it …
How a heart transplant turned one woman into a national transplant advocate
I recently spoke with close friends—both physicians—who admitted something quietly alarming: They’re not resisting change in health care. They’re just tired of constantly adapting while losing the essence of what brought them into medicine in the first place.
“I spend more time documenting than actually caring for my patients.”
“Every time I adjust to one system, a new one replaces it.”
These comments stayed with me—not as complaints, but as confessions. As a …
Innovation is moving too fast for health care workers to catch up
Introduction
The medical profession is grappling with a crisis of profound proportions. Burnout now affects nearly half of all practicing physicians. This is not merely dissatisfaction—it is emotional and moral exhaustion that undermines both physician wellbeing and patient safety. At its core, burnout signals a loss of connection to purpose, to colleagues, and to the healing relationship that defines medical practice.
Burnout manifests as emotional depletion, depersonalization of patients, and a diminished …
Physician burnout: a crisis of conscience, calling, and collective responsibility
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Adjunct professor of psychiatry Arthur Lazarus discusses his article, “How inspiration and family stories shape our most meaningful moments,” which presents a moving fictional story excerpted from his book. The narrative centers …
How inspiration shapes the stories of our lives [PODCAST]
I would never have thought I would be the one writing this piece.
I am a board-certified pediatrician and internist with a background in nutrition, well-versed in integrative medicine. Our family eats its fair share of kale, blueberries, and salmon. We hardly ever have a significant supply of junk food in the house. Fast food is a rarity, and she never even tasted juice in toddlerhood. And still, my child’s BMI …
When the pediatrician is the parent: a personal reckoning with childhood obesity
Before I ever introduced myself as a future doctor, I was a listener.
Not because someone told me that listening was important in medicine, but because, as a first-year student, I quickly realized I had no answers—but I did have ears. And heart. And a quiet seat at the edge of patient stories and preceptor reflections.
In the early days of medical school, everything felt unfamiliar. The terms, the pace, the sense …
How listening makes you a better doctor before your first prescription
When I made the decision to leave the traditional, insurance-based system and start a direct primary care (DPC) practice, I didn’t do so under any illusions. I knew what the critics would say. In fact, I’d already heard it.
I’ve read the blog posts, like the one recently published on …
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!
Pediatrician and certified coach Jessie Mahoney discusses her article, “From burnout to balance: a neurosurgeon’s bold career redesign.” She shares the powerful story of a female neurosurgeon who, on the verge of …
It’s OK to want a different life in medicine [PODCAST]
Cardiovascular disease continues to be the #1 killer of Americans, both men and women.
Obesity and being overweight increase the risk of cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, but beyond these are independent risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease.
Unlike hypertension, which has been called the “silent killer” as its presence is too often unknown to people who have high blood pressure, Americans are rarely unaware …
Why treating obesity like a medical condition saves lives
Historically, health care has approached safety with a Safety-I lens, emphasizing the prevention of errors and investigating failures. While this method remains significant, contemporary health care’s complex, dynamic, and interdependent nature necessitates proactive and adaptive safety strategies. The emerging Safety-II and Safety-III frameworks provide novel perspectives on safety by prioritizing resilience, real-time adaptation, and learning from success, rather than from failure.
Safety-II shifts the focus from what goes wrong …
From errors to resilience: a smarter approach to patient safety
Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.
