KevinMD.com

October 14, 2016Oct 14, 2016

I walked into a patient's room and noticed the hospital has supplied a fold up stool hung on the wall labeled "For Physicians." I shrug. I take it down the stool and open it up and seat it next to…

I walked into a patient’s room and noticed the hospital has supplied a fold up stool hung on the wall labeled “For Physicians.”

I shrug. I take it down the stool and open it up and seat it next to the patient’s bed. I greet the patient, and we discuss how he feels and what all is transpiring and planned for the day. He feels cold, nervous, pain in his back, …

Physician

Should Target be responsible for a needlestick injury in its parking lot?

Skeptical Scalpel, MD

October 13, 2016Oct 13, 2016

A South Carolina jury awarded a woman $4,618,500 for a needlestick injury she sustained in the parking lot of a Target store. She had parked her car, and while walking to the store, her daughter picked up a hypodermic needle.…

A South Carolina jury awarded a woman $4,618,500 for a needlestick injury she sustained in the parking lot of a Target store.

She had parked her car, and while walking to the store, her daughter picked up a hypodermic needle. As she swatted the needle out of the child’s hand, it punctured the woman’s palm. She went into the store and notified an employee.

HIV post-exposure prophylaxis medications were prescribed which she …

Health Policy

Why do so many Americans hate their health care system?

Peter Ubel, MD

October 13, 2016Oct 13, 2016

There is lots to love about American health care. We have some of the best clinicians in the world, as evidenced by the huge number of people who come to the U.S. from other countries when they are sick. Yet the American people are less satisfied with their health care system than are citizens of the majority of other developed countries.

Why do people in the land of the Mayo Clinic …

Real physician voices, twice a week

Free, and one click to unsubscribe.

Medications

Does birth control cause depression?

Roy Benaroch, MD

October 13, 2016Oct 13, 2016

A provocative new study from Denmark supports a link between hormonal contraceptive methods (like birth control pills) and depression. The association seems to be strongest for adolescent girls. Huge studies like this are based on huge datasets. In this case,…

A provocative new study from Denmark supports a link between hormonal contraceptive methods (like birth control pills) and depression. The association seems to be strongest for adolescent girls.

Huge studies like this are based on huge datasets. In this case, the study relies on the Danish medical system’s longstanding penchant for meticulous and integrated medical records. You couldn’t do this kind of research in the USA, where medical records …

Read more…

Does birth control cause depression?

Conditions and Diseases

What can the Amish teach us about asthma in children?

Christopher Johnson, MD

October 13, 2016Oct 13, 2016

Asthma is a complex, chronic lung problem that now affects nearly 10 percent of all children. Both the incidence of new cases and the prevalence of ongoing cases in the pediatric population have been rising steadily for years, although there…

A wealth of research suggests a huge part of asthma causation comes from the environment the child lives in, things like air quality and exposure to various …

Physician

How much should it cost to hold your newborn? $39.35?

Skeptical Scalpel, MD

October 13, 2016Oct 13, 2016

By now you've probably heard about the hospital that charged $39.35 for a woman who just had a cesarean section to hold her baby. The baby's father posted a copy of the bill on Reddit, and it drew over 11,800…

By now you’ve probably heard about the hospital that charged $39.35 for a woman who just had a cesarean section to hold her baby.

The baby’s father posted a copy of the bill on Reddit, and it drew over 11,800 comments. The story was also widely circulated on Twitter.

At least one labor and delivery nurse on Reddit and a spokesperson for Utah Valley Hospital where the baby was born stated that …

Medical Education

Why the third year of medical school is like the first day of school

Nathaniel Fleming

October 13, 2016Oct 13, 2016

There is no feeling that is quite the same as the “first day of school” -- a blend of excitement, nervousness, and uncertainty that almost every student experiences from first grade through college (and sometimes beyond). By now, I’ve had…

There is no feeling that is quite the same as the “first day of school” — a blend of excitement, nervousness, and uncertainty that almost every student experiences from first grade through college (and sometimes beyond). By now, I’ve had a lot of “first days” in my life. Even so, when I officially started my clinical rotations just over three months ago, that all-too-familiar feeling of nervous excitement was reliably …

Physician

How medical institutions cover up suicides

Pamela Wible, MD

October 12, 2016Oct 12, 2016

I recently learned of yet another medical student suicide. Ari Frosch, a second-year student at Penn, died by suicide by walking onto the northbound tracks as a Boston-bound Amtrak train passed through Mansfield station. Amtrak trains do not stop at Mansfield station. Police have surveillance tape of the victim trespassing and walking right onto the tracks. There’s no mystery surrounding this medical student’s Read more…

How medical institutions cover up suicides

Conditions and Diseases

Did a prostate cancer test save actor Ben Stiller’s life?

Dr. Saurabh Jha

October 12, 2016Oct 12, 2016

Ben Stiller—one of the few comedians on this side of the pond who can make me laugh—said prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing saved his life. I suspect he wasn’t being funny. Stiller had Gleason Grade 7 localized prostate cancer. Is he…

Is he right?

The honest answer is that we don’t know for certain. Before I get granular, we must visit proof, level of proof and burden of proof. The statement, “there’s …

Physician

The insurance companies say I’m a terrible doctor. And I’m proud of it.

Lucy Hornstein, MD

October 12, 2016Oct 12, 2016

It’s that time again. As the year draws to a close, various insurance plans try to finish collecting data to calculate bonus payments as “incentives” for “Quality” care. The only problem is that, as I’ve written before, all of their…

Back in the 1990s …

Physician

When naturopaths treat autism, children suffer

Britt Marie Hermes, ND

October 12, 2016Oct 12, 2016

Another child has been severely harmed by a naturopath—this time, in the UK. A four-year-old boy with autism received naturopathic treatments that landed him in the emergency room. The boy had severe dehydration and dangerously elevated calcium levels. A naturopath…

Another child has been severely harmed by a naturopath—this time, in the UK.

A four-year-old boy with autism received naturopathic treatments that landed him in the emergency room. The boy had severe dehydration and dangerously elevated calcium levels. A naturopath had prescribed a regimen of vitamin D, calcium, cod liver oil, zinc and a long list of other substances that included silver, enzymes, salts and trace minerals

As a …

Physician

Patient satisfaction can be done right. Here’s how.

Niran S. Al-Agba, MD

October 11, 2016Oct 11, 2016

Recently I wrote about empowerment and the importance of letting patients make their own health care decisions. Our job is to make sure patients are given information and then allowed to choose the best option for them. Maybe we should even embolden patients; give them confidence and encourage them to take more control. Physicians tend to feel more comfortable advising according to the “standard of care” and …

Medical Education

What medicine can learn from the fire department about team-based care

Pooja Desai

October 11, 2016Oct 11, 2016

Through a thoughtful, community-based education program at my medical school, I spent a week rotating with my local fire department. Immediately, I was immersed in the first-responder field. I learned how to set up a transcutaneous pacemaker, properly unfold a fire hose, and plan ground strategy for wildfires. But what I will remember most years from now is something much less technical: the incredible value of team camaraderie.

More than once, …

Conditions and Diseases

The integration of psychiatry with neuroscience, biochemistry, and genetics

Mark Rubinstein, MD

October 11, 2016Oct 11, 2016

As a forensic psychiatrist, I have testified in courtrooms, at depositions, legal hearings, and inquests. I’ve been cross-examined by attorneys whose agenda was to discredit my testimony or demean psychiatry as a medical specialty. Two criticisms frequently leveled at psychiatry are: 1) Psychiatry has not changed significantly for the last sixty years and, 2) Psychiatry is the least scientific of all medical specialties.

These beliefs are not true.

Over the last few …

Physician

The honest reasons why this doctor chose internal medicine

Ted Tsai, MD

October 11, 2016Oct 11, 2016

As an internal medicine physician, the #3 question people most often ask me is why I chose to be an internist. (The top two being “What is internal medicine?” and “What’s this thing growing on my genitals?”) So I thought…

According to Wikipedia, “Internal medicine or general medicine (in Commonwealth nations) is the medical specialty dealing with …

Physician

The fine line that we walk as physicians

Greg Smith, MD

October 10, 2016Oct 10, 2016

I went into medicine because I wanted to learn about the craft, become proficient at healing disease and easing suffering, and because I genuinely liked getting to know more about my patients and hearing their stories. These reasons for going into medicine as a career and staying in medicine as a vocation have not changed significantly through the last three decades.

The problem we are faced with pretty often nowadays is …

Physician

How this doctor handles the pressures of time

Hans Duvefelt, MD

October 10, 2016Oct 10, 2016

The pressures of time, the complexity of our patients’ needs and today’s documentation requirements can easily make a medical provider feel less than generous these days. We must counteract that in order to carry on as healers. All day long,…

All day long, I am conscious of the time as I work my way through my long list of 15-minute encounters. But I am also conscious of the fact that the more pressure I …

Health Technology

The time doctors and nurses spend with EHRs is a national disgrace

Suneel Dhand, MD

October 10, 2016Oct 10, 2016

I enjoy being a physician. I really enjoy being a physician. Although much of my blog is focused on areas where we need to improve health care, with a particular recent focus on the burdens of information technology, that does…

I’ve received a lot of supportive correspondence regarding my views on how electronic medical records …

Physician

How medical humanities can help physician burnout

Daniel Orlovich, MD, PharmD

October 10, 2016Oct 10, 2016

Something odd happens in medical school. It affects you as a patient, me as a provider, and state and federal budgets. For the first two years of medical school, empathy levels stay the same while we bubble in multiple choice…

Something odd happens in medical school. It affects you as a patient, me as a provider, and state and federal budgets.

For the first two years of medical school, empathy levels stay the same while we bubble in multiple choice questions. Then third year comes. Eagerly, we drop the backpacks and pick up the stethoscope ready to see real life patients. What happens during this long awaited year? Read more…

How medical humanities can help physician burnout

Patient

How empathy can help physician burnout

Martine Ehrenclou, MA

October 9, 2016Oct 9, 2016

By the time I reached Dr. R, I was twelve months into an undiagnosed, severe, lower abdominal pain condition. Desperate for an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan after seeing ten doctors who had misdiagnosed me, I was exhausted and beyond…

Seated across from Dr. R. in her office with copies of my medical records and symptom diary in tow, I waited quietly while she reviewed …

Read more…

How empathy can help physician burnout

Real physician voices, twice a week

The Podcast

Latest episodes

The Podcast

Latest episodes