Why doctors striking may be the most ethical choice

Physician
July 27, 2025

“When doctors strike, patients die.” That phrase—flattened into certainty—gets tossed around like a moral verdict. It shows up in op-eds, comment threads, morning rounds. As if to say: there’s no argument. The matter’s settled. You swore an oath.

But what oath, exactly?

Most physicians are taught to revere the Hippocratic Oath, but few have read the original versions. It wasn’t universal. It wasn’t sacred scripture. It forbade surgery. It invoked Apollo and …

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Integrating vitamin education in mental health care

Conditions
July 27, 2025

For a long time, I was close-minded to the idea of vitamin supplementation as a meaningful part of mental health treatment. Like many in medicine, I saw it as misguided at best and more a part of wellness culture than real science. However, over time, I realized how often we mistake “That makes sense to me” for “That’s objectively true,” as we are prone to fall prey to our mental …

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How photos shape drug stigma—and what we can do about it

Physician
July 27, 2025

Well before I was a physician, I was an art history major at Bowdoin College. Beneath towering pine trees, I spent much of my time in dim lecture rooms off the quad and in the quiet galleries of Maine’s art museums, studying paintings, sculptures, and photographs to understand not just what was being portrayed, but also what they revealed about the people, places, ideas, and defining events of their time. …

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From participants to partners: Rethinking clinical trial design

Physician
July 27, 2025

Clinical trials are the cornerstone of progress in cancer treatment. Yet, paradoxically, the very patients these trials are designed to help often face the greatest obstacles to participation. While the concept of “patient-centered” clinical trials has been around for years, more than 20 percent of U.S. clinical trials fail to accrue a sufficient number of participants, forcing them to fold.

Why aren’t patients enrolling in clinical trials?

While there have …

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Mumps orchitis still causes infertility years after childhood

Conditions
July 27, 2025

As a reproductive endocrinologist, I see countless patients who walk through my doors with quiet stories of loss—sometimes the loss of hope, sometimes the loss of time. But every year, there’s a particular group of gentlemen who share a strikingly similar history.

They come from different countries. Many grew up in regions where the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine was unavailable or inconsistently administered. They had mumps as children, recovered, and thought nothing …

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What it means to be a woman in medicine today

Education
July 27, 2025

At first glance, medical school can be simplified to “drinking from a fire hose.” Endless Anki cards, color-coded notes, iPads filled with diagrams.

Cramming and regurgitation, funny acronyms and mnemonics. Obscure conditions. Buzzwords.

It feels like memorizing a ton of conditions and running through the routine steps of diagnosis, treatment, management, clinical investigations, and so on — until you can recite them in your sleep.

You’re buried in biochemical pathways, pathophysiology, and pharmacology, …

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First-name familiarity improves doctor-patient connection

Physician
July 26, 2025

In medicine, one surprisingly heated debate doesn’t get much airtime: Should patients call their doctors by their first name?

It pops up often on medical forums. I’ve seen long threads dissect whether it’s disrespectful, whether it undermines authority, or whether it reflects a cultural shift in how we view physicians. Some doctors insist on “Doctor” as a matter of principle—status, respect, professionalism. Me? I appreciate being called Dr. Nadelson. It reflects the …

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How Japan and the U.S. can collaborate for better health care

Education
July 26, 2025

The United States and Japan, while separated by geography, language, and culture, share more in common than first meets the eye—particularly when it comes to health care. As post-war democracies that developed robust medical infrastructures in the latter half of the 20th century, both countries have grappled with similar challenges: Aging populations, rising costs, workforce burnout, and persistent health disparities. Yet their respective approaches—the U.S.’s pluralistic, market-driven model and Japan’s …

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Emphasizing empathy and equity in value-based health care delivery

Physician
July 26, 2025

The transformation of care delivery is driven by value-based health care (VBHC). In addition to its cost-effectiveness and clinical efficiency, the success of VBHC depends upon its ability to exemplify empathy and equity. Usually disregarded in pursuing metrics, data, and integrated payments, these two pillars are indispensable for implementing a system that provides dignity and equity to all patients. Embedding empathy and equity into health care delivery is no longer …

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How AI, animals, and ecosystems reveal a new kind of intelligence

Tech
July 26, 2025

As a surgeon, I’m trained to make decisions quickly—based on anatomy, evidence, and pattern recognition. But outside the OR, I’ve been thinking more deeply about something abstract yet everywhere: intelligence. What is it, really? And who or what gets to be called “intelligent”?

We often associate intelligence with humans—or more specifically, with traits like memory, logic, and verbal reasoning. The smarter someone is, we assume, the more they think like us. …

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What it really means to be lucky: a doctor’s story of survival and resilience

Physician
July 26, 2025

This past St. Patrick’s Day my daughter and I were listening to John Lennon’s Luck of the Irish. She wondered aloud whether people realized the phrase was meant to be ironic. Lennon certainly did, singing, “If you had the luck of the Irish, you’d be sorry and wish you were dead …” With Irish-born grandparents and Liverpool’s deep Irish roots, he understood the weight of the phrase, eight hundred years …

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How truth depends on where you stand and what you see

Physician
July 26, 2025

As yet another tragic chapter unfolded in the intractable and ever-escalating Iran-Israel conflict, I found myself in the midst of conversations, intense, impassioned, and sometimes uncomfortably raw. The participants weren’t diplomats or scholars. They were ordinary people, men and women, brown and white, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, all fiercely devoted to their own perspectives, each convinced they were defending not merely an opinion but the truth.

One particularly striking …

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The case for a standard pre-med major in U.S. universities

Education
July 25, 2025

Throughout my academic career I learned that medicine can be pursued through any major. Although the traditional path is through biology, as long as the correct prerequisites are taken, you are eligible to apply. As time went on, I began to think to myself, “Why isn’t there a common pre-med major?” This major would set students up to conquer the rigorous curriculum of medical school. Additionally, if students decide not …

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A physician employment agreement term that often tricks physicians

Finance
July 25, 2025

Lately, I have seen a few instances where physicians have been tricked by a term in their physician employment agreement that clearly does not mean what the physician thinks it means.

The most recent example came when I was negotiating a physician employment agreement, and the physician suggested verbiage concerning her scheduling. The physician suggested that we ask for language that the employer would develop a clinical schedule “after consultation with …

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Why patients and doctors are fleeing flagship hospitals

Physician
July 25, 2025

In the once-venerable corridors of our state’s flagship academic hospital, a slow-motion disaster is unfolding. White patients — yes, white patients, because that’s who’s leaving — are abandoning ship, hightailing it to the quieter, politer hospitals in “white” suburbs. Why? Because the “uniformly Mexican” staff — medical assistants, front desk drones, and nursing staff — treat customer service like it’s a foreign concept. And frankly, it is. Mexico isn’t exactly …

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The hidden reason your vacations never feel like enough

Physician
July 25, 2025

I’ve taken some amazing vacations. Seriously—scenic, memorable, cool stuff. Travel has always been a top financial priority for me. It felt like one of the few things in life that reliably gave me joy and perspective.

And in many ways, I still believe in the value of taking time away. But over the past year, my perspective on why I take vacations—and what I’m actually hoping to gain—has changed in some …

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Confronting the return of measles and vaccine misinformation [PODCAST]

Podcast
July 24, 2025
YouTube video

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes!

Infectious disease physician Janet A. Jokela discusses her article, “Measles is back: Why vaccination is more vital than ever.” Recounting her own experience diagnosing a case in the 1990s, Janet contrasts that …

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Institutional reporting systems discourage clinical honesty

Conditions
July 24, 2025

A few years ago, I said something in a meeting that made the air go still.

“People don’t actually feel safe filing ‘safe’ reports.”

I said it to a room full of leaders from the quality and safety team, the very people tasked with building trust and accountability. They didn’t argue. They just didn’t believe me.

They pointed to the anonymous portal. The reporting dashboard. The just culture training modules. They cited infrastructure.

I …

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How doctors can turn criticism into collaboration

Conditions
July 24, 2025

You’re in the OR. A colleague, maybe a resident, suggests a different approach. You’ve already considered it. Or maybe it’s not a great suggestion. Either way, it’s hard to hear. You feel your muscles tense and lean away from your colleague, avoiding eye contact. Defensiveness is a common and understandable dynamic.

A common dynamic

In the era of shared decision-making, physicians get all kinds of suggestions—not only from peers, but also from …

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