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Physician and professional certified coach Chrissie Ott discusses her article “How an insider advocate can save a loved one.” Chrissie shares a terrifying recent story of a friend’s elderly, Spanish-speaking mother who …
When I was a resident, the trauma surgeon was the go-to person for anything complicated. It seemed like they could do everything, and do it well. That’s what drew me to the field. There was a confidence, decisiveness, and scope that made trauma surgery feel like the pinnacle of surgical mastery.
For most of my career, I’ve worked as a trauma and critical care surgeon, from busy academic Level I trauma …
Halfway through a teletherapy session, you notice your therapist pause mid-sentence. They’ve just heard the soft clatter of your keyboard, or seen your eyes flick sideways to a second screen. You’re technically “there” on video, but a work email just popped up, laundry is buzzing, someone’s messaging you, and suddenly the session is sharing space with three other tabs in your brain.
On the therapist’s end, it can feel like talking …
Medicine thrives on structure. Protocols, guidelines, and standards safeguard patient outcomes and reduce error. Yet the same structure that preserves consistency can quietly suppress creativity.
For physicians who dream of improving systems, innovating within such rigid frameworks can feel like trying to work inside a box. But structure and creativity do not have to be opposites. Oftentimes, the struggle lies in how we spark creativity in a system built for safety.
The …
The average KevinMD reader may wonder why I’m so prolific in my commentary on pediatric medicine and the systemic reforms it demands. The answer is simple: I go to the source. Always.
That habit was forged nearly 30 years ago when the American Academy of Pediatrics invited me to serve as contributing section editor for Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics in AAP Grand Rounds. My role: select key studies, critique methodology, and distill bottom-line …
I found a lump at age 32, just four months after a clear clinical breast exam. No family history. No genetic markers. I noticed the golf-ball-sized mass one day while putting on my bra.
It turned out to be stage 3C, with spread to 14 lymph nodes, as advanced as it gets without being terminal. I went through a year of aggressive treatments: bilateral mastectomy, chemo, radiation, reconstruction, and hormone therapy.
My …
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Food allergy advocate Lianne Mandelbaum discusses her article “Why Hollywood’s allergy jokes are dangerous.” As the mother of a child with a life-threatening food allergy, Lianne shares her personal trauma and outrage …
When I began PA school, I faced an unexpected financial hurdle: I no longer qualified for employer-sponsored health insurance, and although at the time, I didn’t meet the requirements for Medicaid, I did qualify for subsidized health coverage through the marketplace. However, even with subsidies, the monthly premiums and out-of-pocket costs were still a financial strain. To afford health care and cover basic living expenses, I had to continue working …
Where a person lives far too often determines the quality of cancer care they receive and, ultimately, their chances of survival. Despite decades of progress in precision oncology, stark disparities persist between patients treated in urban academic centers and those in rural or underserved communities. A JAMA Network Open study of nearly 37,000 patients found that when rural and urban patients receive the same, protocol-driven care, their outcomes …
Leadership is often discussed in broad strokes: some leaders are structured and precise, while others are flexible and improvisational. But behind those visible styles lie quiet personal and generational histories, the emotional terrain that shaped how we learned safety, trust, and control. I’ve come to see that these histories profoundly influence how we lead and how we’re perceived as leaders, especially in health care, where the stakes are high and …
Early in the pandemic, we began using yellow cloth isolation gowns, environmentally superior, perhaps, to the paper gowns that preceded them, but not without complications. The strings at the neck were invariably tied and tightly knotted after going through the wash. If you’re a smallish doctor or nurse, the pre-tied neckline hung down around the tip of the xiphoid. I stood outside my patients’ rooms on long, weary days and …
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Public health professional Nishat Uddin discusses her article “Why culturally compassionate care matters for South Asian communities.” Nishat explains why South Asians, one of the fastest-growing U.S. populations, face disproportionate rates of …
Two years ago, Drs. Aaron Morgenstein, Corinne Sundar Rao, and Shreekant Vasudhev drew a compelling parallel between the Titanic’s tragic voyage and the looming crisis in U.S. health care. They highlighted systemic issues such as administrative egotism, outdated practices, and substandard resources, warning that without significant course corrections, the health care system was on a collision path with disaster.
Today, in 2025, the iceberg has struck, and the cracks are …
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As a psychiatrist, I’m often asked by family or friends to “help,” to intervene in the mental struggles of a loved one, a friend, or even a distant acquaintance. It usually begins with kindness and concern: “Could you just talk to them?” or “Maybe you can prescribe something, you’d know what’s best.” What follows is always a difficult conversation, because I have to explain something that sounds incomprehensible to most …
In aviation, the right seat is typically reserved for the instructor. In medicine, it’s the role of the diagnostician, the mentor, the gatekeeper. I once piloted a T-37B “Tweet” trainer from the right seat, not as a student, but as someone trusted to guide. That experience shaped how I approach clinical decision-making, interdisciplinary fluency, and the choreography of care.
During a military training program, our squad faced a simulated obstacle: an …
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love the cooking, the noise, the parade, the extra side dishes no one really has room for. Every year I tell my parents I want to “go bigger”: more food, more people, more traditions. And every year, my mother looks at me with a mix of love and exasperation and says some version of, “Can we please do a little less this year? My …
A few days ago, I was speaking with a high-achieving, articulate, brilliant friend, someone always up and doing, super-expressive. During our conversation, I noticed her stumbling over her words, which was quite unusual, and her fidgety hands. She was narrating a traumatic incident that had occurred to her and how it tore her apart and made her simply give up on everything, in her words, “she was done.” Throughout the …
It started with a phone call.
“Doc,” my CEO said, “do you know this doctor?”
I asked why.
“He wrote a prescription for a drug that cost $250,000 for one course.”
“You must mean $25,000,” I said.
“No,” she replied. “The insurer already paid two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
I assumed it had to be a miracle therapy, some one-in-a-million life-saving treatment. Then she told me the name: Acthar Gel. I nearly fell out of my …
An excerpt from Doctor Not Guilty.
The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution exists for a reason. It protects you from self-incrimination. If you remember one rule from this book, hold on to this: Never talk to the police.
By “police,” I mean every investigative agent: FBI, DEA, OIG, HHS, state boards of medicine, and investigators from the attorney general’s office. Not with a lawyer. Not without one. Not ever.
Silence …
The practice of medicine is fundamentally different from the study of medicine. Right now, you’re being rewarded for memorizing and test-taking. But being a good doctor is about communication, clinical judgment under uncertainty, and treating whole humans in context. The skills that get you through preclinical years aren’t the ones that make you excellent at the bedside. Start developing those now: learn to really listen, to tolerate ambiguity, and to …
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