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Psychiatrist, internist, and addiction medicine specialist Muhamad Aly Rifai discusses his article, “When rock bottom is a turning point: Why the turmoil at HHS may be a blessing in disguise.” Muhamad offers …
HHS at rock bottom: Could the current crisis be a blessing for U.S. health? [PODCAST]
All medical malpractice lawsuits stem from complications caused by medical interventions. Some complications are random errors of nature, which are unpreventable. Others are systemic medical errors, caused by medical interventions gone astray. Clinically, a medical error and an error of nature are indistinguishable. Herein lies the problem in medical malpractice.
It is not that the inability to differentiate a systemic medical error from a random error of nature is unknown. On …
How doctors can stop frivolous lawsuits before they start
Will a telehealth model effectively engage adolescents with obesity and their parents to participate in their treatment plan?
Do GLP-1 agonist medications work to improve weight status and reduce or eliminate comorbidities in adolescents?
I’ve worked for over two decades as a community pediatrician to address the childhood and adolescent obesity epidemic. I can say with full certainty, when it comes to adolescents, we aren’t getting anywhere. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the …
“Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.”
– Chuang Tzu
A hunter once lost his way deep inside the jungle while chasing a deer. He used all his navigation skills, but he did not find any way out of the jungle or food for several days. He started feeling so hungry that he could eat an entire elephant in one go. Disappointed, he lost all hope. And that is exactly when …
How the 10th Apple Effect is stealing your joy in medicine
I remember the first time I was shamed for asking a question. It was during my OB/GYN clinical rotation in PA school. I asked my attending physician something about a patient, not out of laziness, but because I genuinely needed clarity. But instead of guiding me, he shut me down. “You should be doing your research. You should be telling me about the patient, not the other way around.” I …
How medical culture hides burnout in plain sight
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Physician and clinical researcher Chris Apfel discusses his article, “Functional precision oncology: a game changer in cancer therapy.” Chris explains that functional precision oncology takes a highly personalized approach by testing a …
How functional precision oncology is revolutionizing cancer treatment [PODCAST]
Medicine demands precision. However, we overlook one of its most critical variables: physician cognitive load. As a medical student, I see both sides: how deeply patients trust their doctors, and how invisible that mental toll often is. Each day, doctors are pressured to make high-stakes decisions while managing patient care and mental strain. As a field, we track vital signs but fail to measure cognitive fatigue.
Burnout is peaking at crisis …
Why tracking cognitive load could save doctors and patients
“I will catch you on the flip side,” I said these words as I planted a kiss on Laura’s clammy forehead. I instinctively knew this would be the last time I spoke with her. I walked around the foot of her hospital bed to Sherry and told her not to get up as I bent over and gave her a big hug, the kind where I buried my face in …
When a doctor becomes the narrator of a patient’s final chapter
Let’s bust a myth: Health care is not just about rules, protocols, and playing it safe. In fact, real breakthroughs happen when we dare to think differently.
Whether it’s improving patient outcomes, solving staffing gaps, or designing more human-centered workflows, the future of health care demands creative thinking at every level.
And no—you don’t need to be an “artist” to be creative in medicine.
Why creativity is no longer optional
Health care is under …
Why innovation in health care starts with bold thinking
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Health care attorney Dennis Hursh discusses his article, “What independent and locum tenens doctors need to know about fair market value.” Dennis explains why understanding fair market value (FMV) is crucial for …
Navigating fair market value as an independent or locum tenens physician [PODCAST]
Gaslighting manifests in many forms. The most common may be political fights involving the extreme positions on any controversial issue (e.g., gun control, abortion, immigration, you name it). One extreme faction claims they have the truth and blames the opposing extreme faction for the problems in our world. We see this every day in news reports. Those who have experienced gaslighting know that political fights involve gaslighting on steroids.
Another common …
Gaslighting and professional licensing: a call for reform
Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, poised to reshape research, health care delivery, and medical decision-making. A new interactive slideshow delves into this shift, highlighting self-improving AI systems like the Darwin Gödel Machine and autonomous AI development.
Here are the key takeaways and their implications for medicine and beyond.
The age of self-improving AI has arrived.
Until recently, AI systems relied heavily on human engineers to design and tune their capabilities. That’s changing. The …
How self-improving AI systems are redefining intelligence and what it means for health care
Imagine a health care team treating your elderly loved one—without the full picture. This is the reality of the U.S. health care system. Our system is failing nursing home residents, the most vulnerable population, by dragging out an outdated, inefficient data-sharing system. To improve nursing home care, health data must be efficiently shared and organized across hospitals and facilities, ensuring tailored treatments for patients with complex conditions. Unfortunately, existing Read more…
How blockchain could rescue nursing home patients from deadly miscommunication
Doctors are born to serve. We say yes to the late shifts, cover for colleagues, sign up for the committee, and go the extra mile for our patients.
Somewhere along the way, that instinct to serve often mutates into something sneakier: The belief that we must constantly prove our worth through more letters behind our name.
I’ve seen it repeatedly. Physicians burned out in their clinical roles start looking for a way …
When service doesn’t mean another certification
Introduction: Financing cancer or fighting it?
Tobacco remains the single largest preventable cause of cancer worldwide, responsible for nearly 8 million deaths annually, including 1.2 million from exposure to secondhand smoke. Despite decades of public health efforts, global tobacco use continues to pose a significant threat to cancer prevention. The question remains: Are we truly winning the war against the world’s leading carcinogen, or are we merely negotiating with death?
Tobacco is …
Financing cancer or fighting it: the real cost of tobacco
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Physician executive Jay Anders discusses his article, “Health care’s data problem: the real obstacle to AI success.” Jay asserts that the transformative potential of artificial intelligence in health care is fundamentally dependent …
Why fixing health care’s data quality is crucial for AI success [PODCAST]
In medicine, we were taught to value humility over pride. To downplay our successes. To “just do our job.” Even as we achieve remarkable things, we rarely pause to acknowledge them, let alone celebrate.
Pride feels risky. Many physicians worry that being proud means being egotistical, self-important, or inconsiderate of others who may be struggling. We were trained to attribute our successes to the team, to luck, or hard work—never to …
Why so many physicians struggle to feel proud—even when they should
It was after dinner at The Goring, just the three of us—Ulla, David Chipp, and me. The kind of dinner where the wine lingers longer than the food, and the conversation slips into the quietly personal.
David, once Reuters’ correspondent in Peking during the Mao years and later editor-in-chief of the Press Association, handed me a gift: a copy of E. M. Forster’s What I believe. Inside, he had written a line …
If I had to choose: Choosing the patient over the protocol
Like many of us in health care, I recently became engrossed in The Pitt. If you’re still watching—or plan to—consider this your spoiler alert. HBO’s new medical drama immerses viewers in a grueling 14-hour shift in the ER of a trauma center. I initially tuned in for Noah Wyle, my teenage crush, but I stayed for the catharsis. Never have I related on such a visceral level to the portrayal …
How a TV drama exposed the hidden grief of doctors
Have you been encouraged to play more by your medical providers recently?
Most likely, the answer is “no.”
However, as a family medicine physician myself, I have begun to see the importance of play for many aspects of our health.
When scholars define playfulness, curiosity, spontaneity, and the freedom to suspend reality are some of the ways it is described.
I might ask right here for you to consider how those elements are important …
Why adults need to rediscover the power of play
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