Kathleen Muldoon, PhD
Kathleen Muldoon is a professor of medical education and a certified coach dedicated to empowering authenticity and humanity in health care. She has pioneered innovative courses including humanity in medicine, medical improv, and narrative medicine. An award-winning educator, she was named the 2023 National Educator of the Year by the Student Osteopathic Medical Association.
Her personal experiences with disability sparked a deep interest in communication science and public health. She has delivered more than 200 seminars and workshops globally and serves on academic and state committees advocating for patient- and professional-centered care. She is cofounder of Stop CMV AZ/Alto CMV AZ, fostering partnerships among health care providers, caregivers, and vulnerable communities.
Her expertise has been featured on NPR, USA Today, and multiple podcasts, and her academic work includes a featured publication in The Anatomical Record. She shares insights and resources on Linktree, Instagram, Substack, and LinkedIn.
Education
I recently worked with a medical student who had spent weeks writing and revising her residency personal statement. Her essay was layered and thoughtful, tracing the arc of her experiences and establishing a clear through-line for why she wanted to…
I recently worked with a medical student who had spent weeks writing and revising her residency personal statement. Her essay was layered and thoughtful, tracing the arc of her experiences and establishing a clear through-line for why she wanted to pursue palliative care medicine. Most importantly, the narrative sounded like her. It was honest. She was proud of it.
Then she showed it to a resident on a rotation. The resident …
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Why ChatGPT can’t write your residency personal statement
Education
Last year around this time, a student offered me $1,000 to write the personal statement for their residency application. Not to coach them through exercises that would help them write it themselves. Not to edit a finished draft. One thousand…
Last year around this time, a student offered me $1,000 to write the personal statement for their residency application.
Not to coach them through exercises that would help them write it themselves. Not to edit a finished draft. One thousand dollars for me to write 800 words about their life that they could submit alongside their transcripts and Dean’s Letter to the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS).
At first, it would have …
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The residency personal statement is an identity problem
Education
We are nearing the end of the academic year, and I recently found myself standing in front of a room of first-year medical students offering what I called "observations." Not punishments. Not a lecture. Observations. And an invitation. Because what…
We are nearing the end of the academic year, and I recently found myself standing in front of a room of first-year medical students offering what I called “observations.” Not punishments. Not a lecture. Observations. And an invitation. Because what I had been seeing was concerning: academic dishonesty, inappropriate use of artificial intelligence (AI), emotional volatility, and a level of disengagement that felt at odds with a curriculum intentionally designed …
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Driving medical education reform through intellectual honesty
Education
There are moments in life when everything you imagined for yourself fits inside a single envelope. This week, every fourth-year medical student in the United States will open the same one at the same moment. Some people scream. Some people…
There are moments in life when everything you imagined for yourself fits inside a single envelope. This week, every fourth-year medical student in the United States will open the same one at the same moment. Some people scream. Some people cry. And a few people quietly realize their life just went somewhere they never planned to go. Match Day is the moment medical students learn where their futures begin. Last …
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What Match Day teaches us about unexpected life paths
Education
I have the great honor and privilege of coaching medical students throughout their training. In the past week, several students have shared experiences that have stayed with me: On clinical rotations, some shared stories of being referred to only as…
I have the great honor and privilege of coaching medical students throughout their training. In the past week, several students have shared experiences that have stayed with me: On clinical rotations, some shared stories of being referred to only as “student one” or “student two,” their humanity quietly erased. Others described managing food and housing insecurity while carrying the financial burden of medical education. Still others, particularly students with darker …
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Moral courage in medical training: the power of the powerless
Conditions
This past year, I've found myself in many different rooms (on podcasts, in boardrooms with legislators, and in conversations with program directors at medical schools and hospitals) talking about what humanity truly means in clinical and caregiving professions. I hear…
This past year, I’ve found myself in many different rooms (on podcasts, in boardrooms with legislators, and in conversations with program directors at medical schools and hospitals) talking about what humanity truly means in clinical and caregiving professions.
I hear back from my third- and fourth-year medical students about how this work shows up for them in clinics, auditions, and residency interviews. They describe moments when an intentional emphasis on humanity, …
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Why humanity in medicine requires peace with a spine
Conditions
My son Gideon is almost 12 years old. He is funny in that sharp, unexpected way that catches you off-guard. He is deeply expressive and full of life. He gives love and joy more freely than most kids his age.…
My son Gideon is almost 12 years old. He is funny in that sharp, unexpected way that catches you off-guard. He is deeply expressive and full of life. He gives love and joy more freely than most kids his age. He is curious and social. He is healthy, and I am grateful for it. We are endlessly proud of who he is.
And, our family constantly walks the edge of breaking …
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The need for pediatric respite care
Conditions
This summer, my Facebook account was permanently "disabled." I had been helping another mother navigate a medical decision for her child, a young adult who is living with a degenerative condition. It wasn't medical advice. It was empathy, drawn from…
This summer, my Facebook account was permanently “disabled.”
I had been helping another mother navigate a medical decision for her child, a young adult who is living with a degenerative condition. It wasn’t medical advice. It was empathy, drawn from my own lived experience as a medical mother, a certified coach, and years of teaching courageous communication at a medical school.
Meta AI had flagged the conversation as a violation of Community …
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AI moderation of online health communities
Conditions
When my son was in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), it felt like the end of the world. But the world did not end. Instead, my whole self was born. And I knew that I would carry this experience…
When my son was in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), it felt like the end of the world. But the world did not end. Instead, my whole self was born. And I knew that I would carry this experience into the classroom.
I had been an award-winning professor for seven years before I found myself pacing the sterile aisle between cribettes on the many early morning hours when my newborn …
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The humanity we bring: a call to hold space in medicine
Policy
There's a stretch of days at the beginning of July, between Canada Day and Independence Day, when I find myself holding my breath. It's a liminal space that I know intimately as a professional, a mother, and a dual citizen.…
There’s a stretch of days at the beginning of July, between Canada Day and Independence Day, when I find myself holding my breath. It’s a liminal space that I know intimately as a professional, a mother, and a dual citizen. Born Canadian and naturalized American. Over the past several years, as I have come into the full realization of who I am as a parent of a child with complex …
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Choosing between care and country: a dual citizen’s Independence Day reflection
Conditions
My son was born with a congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection. Unless you specialize in prenatal care, infectious disease, or pediatric audiology, you've probably never heard of it. That's the first part of the problem. And, even if you have heard…
My son was born with a congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) infection.
Unless you specialize in prenatal care, infectious disease, or pediatric audiology, you’ve probably never heard of it.
That’s the first part of the problem.
And, even if you have heard of it, unless you’re a public health advocate or a parent (or both, like me), you probably don’t know enough about it—at least, not in the ways that matter most to patients.
That’s the …
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Why congenital CMV should be on every parent and doctor’s radar
Conditions
Mother scholar. The phrase rolls off the tongue with the force and ferocity of a curse word—blunt, unsparing, weighty. I didn't coin the term, but I inhabit it. A vessel for the seeming contradictions of tenderness and skepticism, integration and…
Mother scholar.
The phrase rolls off the tongue with the force and ferocity of a curse word—blunt, unsparing, weighty. I didn’t coin the term, but I inhabit it. A vessel for the seeming contradictions of tenderness and skepticism, integration and dissection. Of being simultaneously maternal and cerebral in institutions that reward detachment, autonomy, and efficiency.
As I sit in reflection this May—a month of devotion to motherhood and due dates for faculty …
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How motherhood reshaped my identity as a scientist and teacher
Conditions
Last week, a mother of six children—four of whom have disabilities—made the trek to the health care campus where I'm a faculty member to share her story. She's making this trip weekly on Thursdays to give the same presentation twice…
Last week, a mother of six children—four of whom have disabilities—made the trek to the health care campus where I’m a faculty member to share her story. She’s making this trip weekly on Thursdays to give the same presentation twice in succession for a duration of an hour each time, for five weeks in a row. That’s ten times telling her story to a faceless crowd of interprofessional health care …
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The cost of presence: a lesson in listening
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