KevinMD.com

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026

Nobody in my residency program would have predicted I'd end up in venture capital. Certainly not me. I immigrated to the United States from India with a straightforward plan: become the best physician-scientist I could and build a career in…

Nobody in my residency program would have predicted I’d end up in venture capital. Certainly not me.

I immigrated to the United States from India with a straightforward plan: become the best physician-scientist I could and build a career in academic medicine. For the first chapter of my professional life, that’s exactly what I did. I trained in internal medicine, published over 100 peer-reviewed papers including in the New England Journal …

Physician voices

Why corporate medicine fails every physician-patient

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026

Physicians make the worst patients. Not because we are demanding or entitled, but because we know exactly what is happening behind the curtain. We know when a delay is avoidable. We know when a clinician is being rushed. We know when a decision is being shaped by billing codes rather than clinical judgment. And we know when a system is quietly failing us, the same system we once defended, taught, …

Physician voices

Continuity of care in HIV/AIDS lives in the people who stay

Gus W. Krucke, MD

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026

There are moments in medicine when the entire architecture of modern health care reveals both its brilliance and its limitations at the same time. Years ago, a familiar face appeared quietly in our treatment room, though diminished enough that several…

There are moments in medicine when the entire architecture of modern health care reveals both its brilliance and its limitations at the same time.

Years ago, a familiar face appeared quietly in our treatment room, though diminished enough that several people did not recognize him immediately. He had once been the life of every room he entered, effortlessly social, funny, alive in the particular way some people seem born carrying light …

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Physician voices

The tragic reality of pregnancy-associated breast cancer

Dr. Damane Zehra

May 15, 2026May 15, 2026

This photo shows one of my patients' children. (I am sharing the photo with the family's consent.) Can you guess the secret behind this photo? Let me tell you about the background. The difficult diagnosis of pregnancy-associated breast cancer Mrs.…

This photo shows one of my patients’ children. (I am sharing the photo with the family’s consent.) Can you guess the secret behind this photo? Let me tell you about the background.

The difficult diagnosis of pregnancy-associated breast cancer

Mrs. U was in her first trimester of pregnancy when she discovered a lump in her right breast. Work-up revealed that it was a highly …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Why a rheumatologist asks every doctor to remember being six years old [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

What if the cure for physician burnout isn't a wellness workshop but a 10-minute exercise you can do alone in a quiet room? Brian Sayers is a rheumatologist in Austin, Texas, with nearly 40 years in private practice who founded…

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What if the cure for physician burnout isn’t a wellness workshop but a 10-minute exercise you can do alone in a quiet room? Brian Sayers is a rheumatologist in Austin, Texas, with nearly 40 years in private practice who founded an anonymous counseling program that has funded almost 4,000 visits for …

Physician voices

Clinician peer support is a patient safety issue

Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

Frontline clinicians work in a paradox. We care for others at their most vulnerable moments, yet we struggle to admit our own vulnerability. We recognize pain in patients, but we may miss it in the colleague working with us. We respond quickly to patients’ clinical deterioration, but we ignore our emotional deterioration until it becomes dangerous.

Frontline clinician suicide is not only an individual tragedy. It is also a workplace warning …

Conditions and diseases

Normal labs miss what most patients are living through

Shiv K. Goel, MD

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

She sat across from me, results in hand, and asked the question I have heard more times than I can count. "If everything is normal, why do I still feel like this?" I did not have a clean answer. Not…

She sat across from me, results in hand, and asked the question I have heard more times than I can count.

“If everything is normal, why do I still feel like this?”

I did not have a clean answer. Not because she was wrong to ask. Because she was right, and medicine, at that moment, had run out of language.

Her CBC was normal. Her CMP was normal. Thyroid unremarkable. Inflammatory markers unimpressive. …

Physician voices

Death certificate errors expose flawed medical history

Karen Glover, MD

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

My mother died recently. I received the death certificate. I disagree with her cause of death. The doctor who completed her worksheet did not know her well. The death certificate has a diagnosis that she never had that was handed down from her previous doctor. It omitted a long-standing, chronic disease. Why am I bothered? Because I would complete death certificates on a routine basis, for I am a hospice …

Conditions and diseases

Early bone loss is missed until something breaks

Steven E. Warren, MD, DPA

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

Bone loss is one of the most predictable surprises in medicine. It is predictable because the risk factors are everywhere: menopause, aging, low muscle, low protein intake, steroid exposure, inflammatory disease, low sex hormones, diabetes, smoking, alcohol, thyroid disease, malabsorption,…

Bone loss is one of the most predictable surprises in medicine.

It is predictable because the risk factors are everywhere: menopause, aging, low muscle, low protein intake, steroid exposure, inflammatory disease, low sex hormones, diabetes, smoking, alcohol, thyroid disease, malabsorption, kidney disease, eating disorders, and medications that quietly affect bone. It is a surprise because many patients do not know there is a problem until something breaks. That is not prevention. …

Conditions and diseases

Recurrent sinus infections leave damage beyond your sinuses

Franklyn R. Gergits, DO, MBA

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

When a patient walks into my office after five failed antibiotic courses, the first thing that goes through my mind isn't clinical. It's human. I'm worried about what happened to the healthy bacteria in her nose, the protective organisms that…

When a patient walks into my office after five failed antibiotic courses, the first thing that goes through my mind isn’t clinical. It’s human. I’m worried about what happened to the healthy bacteria in her nose, the protective organisms that have been defending her sinuses since the day she was born. I’m worried about her gut. And honestly, I’m worried about something bigger than both: the generations of kids and …

Health policy

How gold cards can drive California pain management reform

Kayvan Haddadan, MD

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

Key issues in California's health care system highlight some structural problems that hit patients, doctors, and communities hard. These aren't abstract policy debates; they are day-to-day realities in pain management, chronic care, and everyday practice. Core issues, which were pulled…

Key issues in California’s health care system highlight some structural problems that hit patients, doctors, and communities hard. These aren’t abstract policy debates; they are day-to-day realities in pain management, chronic care, and everyday practice. Core issues, which were pulled from the previously published articles, include but are not limited to:

Physician exodus and shortages: High taxes, aggressive board scrutiny, and a tough environment drive doctors out of California

…

Physician voices

Primary care crisis requires new training and skills

Justin Oldfield, MD

May 14, 2026May 14, 20263

The primary care crisis has been well documented. Experts cite low pay, lack of respect and administrative burden, all of which have contributed to burnout and a growing shortage of primary care physicians (PCPs). But even if we solve those problems, are PCPs well-prepared to care for an increasingly older, sicker population saddled with psychiatric disease? For many PCPs practicing today, the answer is no. There are myriad reasons for …

Physician finance

3 reasons credentialing delays push past 90 days

GetPracticeHelp

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

The extra 90 days is not a rounding error A 90-day credentialing timeline and a 180-day credentialing timeline can sound like two versions of the same problem. They are not. The second version can mean another quarter of rent, software,…

The extra 90 days is not a rounding error

A 90-day credentialing timeline and a 180-day credentialing timeline can sound like two versions of the same problem. They are not. The second version can mean another quarter of rent, software, malpractice coverage, staff time, loan payments, marketing spend, and owner compensation before the practice can bill a major payer.

For a typical primary care startup, 90 additional days of fixed costs can …

Physician voices

Institutional misrepresentation harms vulnerable patients

Ann Lebeck, MD

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

She came back three weeks later, sicker. She had been seeing a physical therapist for her lower back pain. At her last visit she mentioned that her cough was getting worse. He said nothing, and she did not push it.…

What she did not know was that she had been told she was seeing “the doctor.” Not a physical therapist. The …

Physician voices

Moral injury in medicine goes beyond simple burnout

Gus W. Krucke, MD

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

Most young physicians enter medicine with a sincere desire to help people. They expect long hours, difficult training, and personal sacrifice. What many do not expect is how profoundly the environment around them will shape not only how they practice…

Medicine teaches many things that never appear on a syllabus. A resident quickly learns which patient encounters generate complaints, portal messages, administrative scrutiny, or poor satisfaction …

Conditions and diseases

Why clinical ethics and medical law demand your attention

Daniel Sokol, JD

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026

Most clinicians give little thought to ethics and law until something goes wrong. This is understandable. They are immersed in concrete clinical tasks, ordering tests, reading reports, examining patients, and running clinics. Ethics can feel abstract and legal rules distant…

As an ethicist and trial attorney, I see the consequences of ethical error every week. They can harm patients, erode trust in the profession, and destroy promising careers. …

The Podcast by KevinMD

One silly mistake can sabotage your medical career before it starts [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026

What if the biggest threat to your success in medical training has nothing to do with how much you study? Vance Lehman, professor of neuroradiology and chief of neuroradiology education at the Mayo Clinic, spent over two years researching why…

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Physician voices

Symptoms with normal labs deserve a better question

Shiv K. Goel, MD

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026

She sat across from me, results in hand, and asked the question I have heard more times than I can count.

“If everything is normal, why do I still feel like this?”

I did not have a clean answer. Not because she was wrong to ask. Because she was right, and medicine, at that moment, had run out of language.

Her CBC was normal. Her CMP was normal. Thyroid unremarkable. Inflammatory markers unimpressive. …

Conditions and diseases

Can clonal hematopoiesis improve blood cancer screening?

Jason Liebowitz, MD

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026

On November 22, 2025, Tatiana Schlossberg, a 35-year-old journalist and the daughter of Caroline Kennedy, announced that she was dying from a rare and particularly aggressive form of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In a heart-wrenching essay in The New Yorker, she described having been diagnosed with the disease just a few hours after delivering a healthy baby girl and when she was seemingly in the prime of …

Physician voices

International medical graduates need real protections

Vasilii Khammad, MD, PhD

May 13, 2026May 13, 2026

In 2019, I completed my medical training in Russia and arrived in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar. My award carried the U.S. president's personal signature, a powerful welcome to a country I saw as a place of opportunity,…

In 2019, I completed my medical training in Russia and arrived in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar. My award carried the U.S. president’s personal signature, a powerful welcome to a country I saw as a place of opportunity, freedom, and cultural exchange. It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime honor that most foreign physicians can only dream of. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. In early 2020, while still in the …

Real physician voices, twice a week

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