Kevin Pho, MD, is a practicing, board-certified internal medicine physician and the founder and editor of KevinMD, which he built from scratch in 2004 to give clinicians and patients a place to be heard. Over two decades, it has become one of the most recognizable physician-led publications in health care, drawing more than 7 million annual page views and over 500,000 followers across social media. He still sees patients in primary care in Nashua, New Hampshire, the practice he says keeps the platform honest.
He is the host of The Podcast by KevinMD, a daily, 15-minute show that has surpassed 2,000 episodes and 2.6 million IAB-certified downloads, featuring physicians, patients, caregivers, founders, and health care leaders in conversation about what they actually see and do. He is also a national media commentator and the coauthor of Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices.
An acclaimed keynote speaker, Kevin speaks nationwide to clinicians and non-clinicians on health care, digital media, physician leadership, and burnout. His signature keynote, "Connect and be heard: Make a difference in health care with social media," traces his social media journey since 2004 and inspires audiences to strengthen the doctor-patient relationship, make their voices heard in health reform, and turn the tide against clinician burnout. He is the founder of Physician Speaking by KevinMD, a physician-run speakers bureau, and is available for speaking opportunities.
Kevin earned his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine and completed his internal medicine residency at Boston University Medical Center. The New York Times called KevinMD "a highly-coveted publishing place for doctors and patients," and Forbes called it a "must-read health blog." He is an inductee of the Healthcare Internet Hall of Fame, a recipient of the American Medical Writers Association McGovern Award, and a New Hampshire Magazine Top Doctor.
Primary care physicians often have to see patients with a litany of issues. Often within a span of a 15-minute office visit.
This places the doctor in the middle of a tension — spend more time with the patient to address all of the concerns, but risk the wrath of patients scheduled afterwards, who are then forced to wait.
And, in some cases, it’s simply impossible to adequately address every patient question …
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Patient complaints do not fit the primary care office visit
Mediation has been cited as a way to lower the cost of litigation and compensate injured patients without going through the ordeal of a trial.
In post from the WSJ Health Blog, the problem is few doctors are participating.
That’s a problem.
A study from a law journal looked at 31 cases that went to mediation, and found that,
of those cases, 16 were settled at mediation, 5 settled afterward and 10 weren’t …
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Why doctors should embrace mediation for medical malpractice
Early last year, I wrote that conservatives should have been happy with health reform.
Maybe they just didn’t realize it yet, because they’re rejoicing after yesterday’s news of a federal judge ruling the individual mandate unconstitutional.
But by supporting repeal, conservatives should be careful what they wish for.
The fact is, the Affordable Care Act is a moderate piece of legislation. There’s no public option. It leaves private insurers intact. There is …
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Health reform repeal should make conservatives nervous
Medical students today consider lifestyle an essential criteria when choosing a specialty.
It’s become a cliche that most are looking towards the ROAD (radiology, ophthalmology, anesthesiology and dermatology) to happiness.
There’s been some recent media attention at how women are lured to specialties that offer a greater balance between their family lifestyle and professional demands.
Claudia Golden, a Harvard economics professor, recently noted that,
high-paying careers that offer more help in balancing work …
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Lifestyle matters for specialties that want to survive
There’s little question that CT scans are on the rise, especially in the emergency department.
A recent paper from Radiology put a number to the increased frequency of the test, concluding,
CT, a radiology tool that once took nine days to finish, was used 16.2 million times in 2007 to diagnose headaches, stomach aches, back pain, chest pain and the like. That was a huge increase from 1995 when it was …
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The reassurance of a CT scan in the emergency department
The following op-ed was published on October 27th, 2010 in USA Today.
When I ask new patients how they found me, frequently they say on the Internet through search engines such as Google.
Out of curiosity, I recently Googled myself. Numerous ads appeared, promising readers a “detailed background report” or a “profile” of me. Among the search results was information about my practice, whether I was board certified, had any lawsuits against …
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Do online physician rating sites help patients to choose a good doctor?
Hospitals have recently been stepping up their infection control procedures, in the wake of news about iatrogenic infections afflicting patients when they are admitted.
Doctors are increasingly wearing a variety of protective garb — gowns, gloves and masks — while seeing patients.
In an interesting New York Times column, Pauline Chen wonders how this affects the doctor-patient relationship.
She cites a study from the Annals of Family Medicine, which concluded that,
fear of …
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Balancing infection control with the patient experience
The bipartisan debt commission appointed by President Obama recently released its recommendations on how to pare the country’s debt.
Of interest to doctors is the suggestion to change the way doctors are paid. Physician lobbies have been advocating for removal of the Sustainable Growth Rate formula — the flawed method by which Medicare, and subsequently private insurers, pays doctors.
According to this method, physicians are due for a pay cut of …
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Medical malpractice reform in exchange for paying doctors less
Having more primary care physicians doesn’t necessarily improve the quality of care.
That may come as a surprise to regular readers of this blog, but that’s one of the findings that came from a recent analysis of the Dartmouth Atlas.
As reported by the WSJ’s Health Blog,
having regular primary-care visits isn’t a guarantee of receiving recommended care. There was “no relationship” between rates of breast cancer screening for women age 67-69 …
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Primary care private practice will die, will patients benefit?
A social media manager is becoming an imperative position for hospitals.
Medical institutions are waking up to the fact that they need to engage their patients and physicians online. No where is there more fertile growth than in the various social media platforms that are prevalent today — like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
American Medical News recently profiled the phenomenon, highlighting the position of social media manager, which some institutions pay between …
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Can a social media manager convince doctors to get online?
Hospitals nationwide are racing against the clock to ensure their health IT systems meet meaningful use guidelines.
The incentive? Money, of course. Systems that meet certain criteria make doctors eligible for up to $44,000 in bonus money from the government.
As mentioned on this blog previously, implementing an electronic health system is difficult. The usability of the current generation of EHRs is still relatively primitive, especially when compared to other industries, and …
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Health IT will provide job security for the foreseeable future
Doctors: if you’re sick, don’t go to work.
The stereotype of doctors is that they go to work, despite whatever symptoms ail them. Calling in sick places strain on colleagues. Especially in residency, where team members are expected to pick up the slack.
In a recent column, the New York Times’ Pauline Chen discusses the image of self-sacrifice that a sick doctor going to work portrays:
Hacking, febrile or racked with the …
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Sick doctors who work are doing more harm to their patients than good
Is the doctor-patient relationship really more sacrosanct than the nurse-patient relationship?
That’s the provocative question asked by Theresa Brown in a recent column from Well, the New York Times’ health blog.
She discusses an instance when she had a disagreement with a physician over a patient care issue.
I couldn’t believe that this doctor, who had always worked well with the nurses on my floor, had just suggested, at least in my …
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The doctor patient relationship in team-based patient care
Authors of a recent study from the Archives of Internal Medicine are unlikely to endear themselves to specialists.
As reported by Reuters, and provocatively titled, Do specialist doctors make too much money?, the study gives a per-hour breakdown of how much doctors make.
I think this is a good approach, since annual salary figures do not account for the number of hours doctors work — and in the case of primary …
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Specialist and primary care pay per hour
Dr. Robert Sears’ The Vaccine Book, is, as Rahul Parikh puts it, “a nightmare for pediatricians like me.”
In a piece from Salon, Dr. Parikh brings his issues to the author. The controversy of the book is the so-called “alternative vaccine schedule,” which, as vaccine developer Paul Offit puts it,
is “misrepresentation of vaccine science” that “misinforms parents trying to make the right decision for their children” in the Journal of Pediatrics. …
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Public health fears will not sway parent opinion on vaccines
