Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Deepak Gupta is an anesthesiologist. Sarwan Kumar is an internal medicine physician.

Expanding the SOAP framework boosts health outcomes

Physician

May 11, 2026

The Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan (SOAP) framework could be expanded beyond clinical care to also address patients’ financial and legal well-being. This would require training health care providers in basic financial and legal principles, establishing dedicated financial-legal departments within health care institutions, and potentially offering financial and legal services as add-ons to health care insurance. With these changes, routine health care encounters could become more comprehensive, addressing socioeconomic needs …

Rethinking residency: How to reshape graduate medical education

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Education

February 7, 2025

Graduate medical education (GME) could explore several forward-thinking processes to enhance the journey of medical trainees. These processes could focus on selecting applicants for residency, fostering their development to excel as trainees, and preparing them to graduate as competent, certified physicians capable of independently practicing their specialties.

As objective numerical scores from the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) become a thing of the past, it may be time to consider …

How night volunteers could transform health care during staff shortages

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Physician

January 4, 2025

Inpatient caregiving companions, especially during nights, may hold significant value in enhancing patient recovery and expediting discharge. Hospital nights can be tumultuous not only for inpatients but also for their caregivers, whether professional or personal. This need persists despite humanity’s adaptation to varying chronotypes—lion, bear, wolf, and dolphin—which have enabled people to transcend their diurnal instincts for the collective good. Nevertheless, the challenges of nighttime caregiving remain profound.

A critical issue …

Paper vs. electronic records: Why a blend is essential for modern health care

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Physician

June 29, 2024

It is time to consider a blend of paper and electronic records. Paper records will not remain relevant forever, nor will electronic records remain infallible. The purpose of any record is to ensure that the past is preserved. If the past is lost, the present feels weakened. However, this sense of weakness arises only when the present constantly relies on the past. What if there were no past to refer …

Why immigrant physicians struggle to bring their aging parents to the U.S.

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Physician

February 23, 2024

In the United States (U.S.), immigrating physicians typically fall into three categories: those working temporarily on nonimmigrant visas, those permanently residing on immigrant visas, and those who have become U.S. citizens through naturalization.

While immigrating physicians can easily move from their home countries to the U.S., they often encounter challenges when considering bringing their aging dependent parents with them. The U.S. offers temporary nonimmigrant pathways for parents of immigrating physicians who …

Improving medical specialty selection with pre-training examinations

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Education

November 15, 2023

Considering that the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) primarily evaluates candidates’ general medical knowledge, there is a growing need to introduce specialty-specific pre-training examinations (PTEs). This is because the USMLE’s focus on overall medical knowledge may not accurately predict the performance of applicants in their specialty-specific in-training examinations (ITEs). The introduction of PTEs could serve as a more reliable indicator of applicants’ commitment and aptitude for their chosen specialties. …

Ensuring compensation during absences

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Physician

August 25, 2023

As human needs continue to evolve, it is essential for our systems to adapt accordingly. One perplexing question is who bears the cost of human work. Do the systems pay for human labor, or do humans contribute to the systems, which, in turn, pay for their work? From an economic perspective, it boils down to humans paying for humans to work through human-devised systems. We won’t delve into the idea …

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Ensuring compensation during absences

Equitable health care guidelines for minority populations

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Physician

August 13, 2023

Health care data analysis has shed light on significant disparities in health care across various locations. To address these inequalities, institutions, payers, and regulators have distinct options at their disposal, both socially and economically. Concurrently, individual health care providers can take their own initiatives while collaborative efforts are made to establish checks and balances to tackle these disparities. Exploring the potential avenues available to providers in resolving these issues is …

The transitional year: a must-have preliminary for GME

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Physician

July 28, 2023

The debate surrounding graduate medical education (GME) revolves around whether one should dedicate themselves to their current residency or focus on future fellowship opportunities. This confusion becomes more pronounced after completing fellowship programs, especially in inpatient settings, where specialists consult with generalists who have completed residency programs and obtained board certification without pursuing further specialization.

The fundamental question is whether generalists should be regarded and treated as specialists. Looking towards the …

The invaluable role of residents in transforming health care

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Physician

July 13, 2023

The query surrounding graduate medical education (GME) programs and their faculty revolves around whether they truly recognize the value of residents. Assessing their value can be subjective as well as objective. Here are some questions that programs, faculty, and residents should contemplate before drawing their own conclusions.

Do health care institutions incur financial losses when they have residents who cannot directly bill health care payers for their services, compared to institutions …

Surviving TMI and AI: the importance of self-initiated self-learning for future physicians

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Tech

May 14, 2023

Although adult education is meant to be accomplished without spoon-feeding, academic physicians find it challenging to avoid spoon-feeding their medical students, residents, and fellows when designing curriculums for them during medical school and graduate medical education (GME). With the advent of the internet and digital information, the situation has become worse instead of better. Artificial intelligence (AI) has not done enough to help humanity or may be helping too much, …

Is mandating pre-medical training widening disparities in the U.S. physician workforce?

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Education

March 8, 2023

Around 75 percent of U.S. physicians are U.S. MD/DOs who have completed pre-medical training, while the remaining 25 percent are international medical graduates (IMGs) who may not have completed pre-medical training but are still able to take the United States Medical Licensure Examination (USMLE) and become licensed to practice medicine in the U.S.

From the patient’s perspective, pre-medical training may not be necessary unless pre-medical training-deficient IMGs are not evenly distributed …

Equalizing the future of medical residencies: standardizing work hours and wages

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Education

March 2, 2023

In the United States, work hours are traditionally recorded on a weekly basis, and salaries are paid every two weeks. However, full-time employees (FTEs) work for a full year and receive a W-2 annually. FTEs are usually hired based on an annual wage divided into 26 bi-weekly paychecks. Tracking weekly work hours can lead to inconsistencies in time recording, so it might be better for both employers and FTEs to …

The medical school selection process may be more crucial for shaping the future physician workforce

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Education

January 18, 2023

Every year, thousands of applicants in the United States register for the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). Many graduate medical education (GME) programs receive thousands of applications that are reviewed by recruitment teams with fewer than ten faculty members. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of applications for GME programs and an overwhelming number of interviews for ERAS applicants, even though only a few hundred …

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

Deepak Gupta, MD and Sarwan Kumar, MD

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