KevinMD.com

March 30, 2017Mar 30, 2017

Spoiler alert: I am biased. I graduated from St. George’s University, a medical school in Grenada that graduates more physicians annually than any other medical school in the world. It is a school comprised of people who are so determined to become doctors that they are willing to move to a different country — some taking their families with them, some leaving everything behind — to study medicine. My peers …

Physician

What should my doctor look like?

Jack Turban, MD

March 30, 2017Mar 30, 2017

Imagine while driving into work, you drive through a green light. When you look to the right, you see a car barreling through the intersection, and then everything goes black. You vaguely remember being taken into the emergency room of a prestigious hospital nearby. In the ED, you hear a doctor’s voice yelling at nurses to give you medications, and then everything goes black. You wake up in a hospital …

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What should my doctor look like?

Conditions and Diseases

Let older people talk about sex

Dr. Leonard A. Sowah

March 30, 2017Mar 30, 2017

He was referred to me by a colleague with a large geriatric practice for evaluation and treatment for HIV. He was 76 years old and lived in an assisted living facility. He was, however, very independent and only required limited assistance. When asked what he expected from the visit he responded that he had been sent to me by his PCP. Review of his records suggested that in addition to …

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Let older people talk about sex

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Health Policy

Health care cannot be sustainably fixed in broad political strokes

Margalit Gur-Arie

March 30, 2017Mar 30, 2017

President Trump campaigned on making health care better, cheaper and available to all Americans, regardless of ability to pay. Once Mr. Trump was safely in the White House, the Republican “thought leaders” in Congress were quick to supply him with their stale and superficial “plans” to repeal and replace Obamacare, which were written in protest to President Obama’s policies and were never meant to be implemented. When scrutinized by the …

Physician

How a physician-mother shapes the future of medicine

Hala Sabry, DO, MBA

March 30, 2017Mar 30, 2017

This week is Physicians Week, and this is one in a series of interviews with members of the physician community that are bringing a variety of ideas and networks together in order to improve the relationships between physicians and between…

Dr. Hala Sabry is the founder of a physician social media group, that started with 20 people that has grown in two years to over 65,000 women …

Conditions and Diseases

Does tough love equate to wellness or destruction?

David Kolker, LICSW, JD

March 29, 2017Mar 29, 2017

Heroin abuse in the United States is reaching epidemic proportions. According to SAMHSA, between 2007 and 2012, the number of Heroin users has doubled from an estimated 375,000 to over 665,000. Additionally, in 2010, the number of deaths as a…

It is impossible to avoid the facts about heroin. We are bombarded daily by the national and local media and extensive online resources. …

Physician

3 lessons I learned about domestic violence in the ER

Maryam Akbari, DMD, MPH

March 29, 2017Mar 29, 2017

As a first-year oral and maxillofacial (OMF) surgery intern, I was the first responder to any facial trauma at a hospital in Queens, NY. Therefore in the past 12 months, I was a primary care provider for numerous facial lacerations of women due to domestic violence. And was a 1st assistant in providing care to patients (both men and women) with orbital floor fractures and mandible fractures due to domestic …

Medications

The pitfalls of prior authorization for prescription drugs

Yul Ejnes, MD

March 29, 2017Mar 29, 2017

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. One of the things that I dread the most about January 1 is that it’s the start of “prior authorization (PA) season” for prescription medications. It is time…

A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.

One of the things that I dread the most about January 1 is that it’s the start of “prior authorization (PA) season” for prescription medications. It is time consuming and frustrating, plus it often jeopardizes patient safety and quality of care.

A recent Viewpoint in …

Health Policy

Why Internet privacy matters for patients

Jonathan Coleman

March 29, 2017Mar 29, 2017

Most of us have grown accustomed to Google and Facebook. When I had an Android phone, I quickly got over the initial creepiness factor of going into a restaurant, bar, or store and having a message from Google popping up with reviews, menus, or coupons. I liked that Google could recommend times to leave or asked if I went to a certain spot often. But Facebook and Google are basically …

Physician

I felt that I couldn’t let him face this journey alone

Jonathan Gotfried, MD

March 29, 2017Mar 29, 2017

From my wife's grandparents' Manhattan apartment, I could hear the noises of traffic and pedestrians in Central Park seven floors below. The sounds were a refreshing change from the beeping monitors, overhead pages and ringing phones that are the usual…

From my wife’s grandparents’ Manhattan apartment, I could hear the noises of traffic and pedestrians in Central Park seven floors below. The sounds were a refreshing change from the beeping monitors, overhead pages and ringing phones that are the usual backdrop to my work as a physician in a large Philadelphia medical center. Here the only background conversations I heard were those of loved ones in the kitchen, not those …

Health Technology

The physician as a health care innovator

Colm Murphy, MD

March 29, 2017Mar 29, 2017

Dr. Colm Murphy is a cardiologist and the founder of a tech company that is about building a community of physicians in order for them to help …

Conditions and Diseases

When should you introduce gluten to your baby?

Maureen Leonard, MD

March 28, 2017Mar 28, 2017

Infants with a first-degree relative (parent or sibling) with celiac disease, and who carry an at-risk (DQ2 or DQ8) gene, have a higher risk of developing the autoimmune disorder triggered by gluten-containing foods. Many parents, especially those with a family history of celiac disease, are understandably nervous about introducing gluten into their child’s diet. They wonder whether there is an ideal time to introduce gluten, if they can prevent celiac …

Physician

This doctor beat burnout by doing these 5 things

Roozehra Khan, DO

March 28, 2017Mar 28, 2017

Burnout syndrome is a state of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. I burned out early. Right out of fellowship, I no longer wanted to be a doctor. The grueling hours, my grumpy co-workers, and distant patient engagements left me totally exhausted. However, over the course of a year, I was able to rediscover my passion for medicine.

Some tactics were deliberate, mindful behaviors, some occurred by accident, …

Physician

What on call used to mean

Hans Duvefelt, MD

March 28, 2017Mar 28, 2017

“I was surprised when the emergency doctor at Cityside Hospital said he was going to call you to discuss my case," Farmer Carr said when I saw him today. “I figured you’d be asleep at that hour.” I smiled as…

“I was surprised when the emergency doctor at Cityside Hospital said he was going to call you to discuss my case,” Farmer Carr said when I saw him today. “I figured you’d be asleep at that hour.”

I smiled as I recalled the cell phone call that had come in at 9:30 the night I had sent him back to the hospital for a reassessment.

“No, I was sitting in my camping …

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What on call used to mean

Health Policy

The emergency department and “access” to care

William F. Paolo, MD

March 28, 2017Mar 28, 2017

The redefinition of a potentially functioning medical system in which each individual is able to utilize financially non-prohibitive care into a disjointed balkanized realm of income-based insurance tribes is aided by the protean definitions of the political buzzword “access.” Access to medical care does not entail the ability to reliably obtain medical care much as medical insurance reform is not, in point of fact, healthcare reform. Regardless, the conflation of …

Physician

What can doctors learn from La La Land?

Suneel Dhand, MD

March 28, 2017Mar 28, 2017

Last week I finally got around to watching La La Land. As a fan of musicals, I had wanted to see it for quite some time, and before I stepped into the theater, I didn’t know what it was about…

Last week I finally got around to watching La La Land. As a fan of musicals, I had wanted to see it for quite some time, and before I stepped into the theater, I didn’t know what it was about nor what kinds of reviews it had been getting. Spoiler alert: Don’t read on if you haven’t seen it and intend to watch it (and I’ve never told anybody before …

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What can doctors learn from La La Land?

Physician

How social media powers physician advocacy

Marion Mass, MD

March 28, 2017Mar 28, 2017

Dr. Marion Mass is a pediatrician in Philadelphia and a board member of a physician advocacy group, a large physicians-only network that started as a group on …

Physician

This doctor gives his cell number out to patients. He explains why.

James C. Salwitz, MD

March 27, 2017Mar 27, 2017

Contrary to what my wife and colleagues think, it is not all about me. Well yes, I do get lonely sitting at my desk late at night, when my wife is busy, and the long-ago-moved-away kids are not available, and there is nothing running on NASCAR. Nonetheless, it is not really about my needs. I am talking, of course, about why I give patients my cell phone number.

It is printed …

Health Policy

3 myths about a single-payer system and why it’s doomed to fail

Robert Pearl, MD

March 27, 2017Mar 27, 2017

It sounds great, almost too good to be true: Coverage for all with lower costs, a broad choice of providers, and minimal paperwork. The problem is that it won’t work. For more than half a century, advocates for a government-run,…

It sounds great, almost too good to be true: Coverage for all with lower costs, a broad choice of providers, and minimal paperwork.

The problem is that it won’t work.

For more than half a century, advocates for a government-run, single-payer approach to health care coverage have touted its potential. With debate over the Affordable Care Act heating up by the day, progressives, both at the state and federal levels are now …

Physician

Meet the doctor who started a physician advocacy group

Kim Jackson, MD

March 27, 2017Mar 27, 2017

Dr. Kim Jackson founded a large network of physicians and future physicians that started as a group on Facebook. As patients lamented increasing costs in health coverage …

Real physician voices, twice a week

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