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Robert C. Smith, MD

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Robert C. Smith is an internal medicine physician and author of Has Medicine Lost Its Mind?: Why Our Mental Health System Is Failing Us and What Should Be Done to Cure It.

How the mind-body split in medicine shaped modern clinical care

Robert C. Smith, MD
Conditions
January 24, 2026

In my first and second KevinMD posts, I emphasized how medicine had failed clinicians by not training them in mental health care. All agree, it’s not our fault. Now let’s look at how successfully our teachers did prepare us for patients with medical disorders. There’s an interesting history behind how we developed expertise in physical diseases: Medicine needed to overthrow the four humors theory that guided clinical care …

Read more…

How the mind-body split in medicine shaped modern clinical care

Why medicine needs a second Flexner Report

Robert C. Smith, MD
Physician
September 20, 2025

Modern medicine is failing in three critical areas: mental health, chronic disease, and prevention at the cost of trillions of wasted dollars and untold suffering.

The problem runs deep. In my earlier KevinMD post, “Medicine’s mental health crisis: why the system is failing us,” I described the “mind-body split” theory of the 16th and 17th-century Scientific Revolution as guiding medicine and medical education since that time. It …

Read more…

Why medicine needs a second Flexner Report

Medicine’s mental health crisis: Why the system is failing us

Robert C. Smith, MD
Conditions
April 3, 2025

An excerpt from Has Medicine Lost Its Mind?: Why Our Mental Health System Is Failing Us and What Should Be Done to Cure It.

One of society’s great issues is who decides what science does—the public or science. For example, the populace has taken control and been clear that it does not want science to create human beings in a laboratory or construct computers that run the world. Once …

Read more…

Medicine’s mental health crisis: Why the system is failing us

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  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • The cost of time constraints in primary care: Why doctors feel rushed

      Ann Lebeck, MD | Physician
    • Why clinicians fail at writing expert reports

      Tracy Liberatore, Esq, PA | Conditions
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      Allan Dobzyniak, MD | Physician
    • Scientific writing and AI: Balancing authorship and assistance

      Rao M. Uppu, PhD | Tech
    • The dysfunctional medical malpractice marketplace and tort reform

      Howard Smith, MD | Physician
    • Medicine and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

      Olumuyiwa Bamgbade, MD | Policy
  • Past 6 Months

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    • Why does sex work seem like a more viable path than medicine in 2026?

      Corina Fratila, MD | Physician
    • The 9 laws of health care quality: Why metrics miss the point

      Constantine Ioannou, MD | Physician
    • Politics and fear have replaced science in U.S. pain management [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
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      Bernard Leo Remakus, MD | Physician
    • The Platinum Rule in health care: Moving beyond the Golden Rule

      Harvey Max Chochinov, MD, PhD | Conditions
  • Recent Posts

    • Why bariatric patients struggle with protein and how to fix it

      Kevin Huffman, DO | Conditions
    • Why ABIM’s use of Medicare claims data violates physician autonomy

      James Rudolph, MD | Physician
    • Iranian physicians in 2026: a testament to medical courage

      Farid Sabet-Sharghi, MD | Physician
    • Why hospital systems fail to notice the human behind the bill [PODCAST]

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