Hospital-Based Medicine

Why so many patients ask for drips—and what doctors wish they knew

Physician

September 6, 2025

As a doctor working in a primary health care setting, it’s become routine, almost expected, to hear patients ask for a drip. Sometimes it’s after they’ve listed their symptoms, sometimes they say it right after walking in: “Doctor, please just give me drip.” And often, the complaints aren’t serious. It could be catarrh, a mild fever, or even plain tiredness.

At first, I didn’t understand it. I’d look at the patient’s …

The dying man who gave me flowers changed how I see care

Augusta Uwah, MD

Physician

September 2, 2025

Today for the first time, I got flowers from a grateful patient.

And I reflect on how rough the week has been, all the things that seemed impossible and insurmountable, and everything that has brought me to this point. The patient is going on hospice, he’s going to die, yet he felt that I made a significant impact that he wanted to show his gratitude. And that almost brought me to …

Why AI must support, not replace, human intuition in health care

Rafael Rolon Rivera, MD

Tech

August 9, 2025

When I was a new hospitalist in a tertiary center, I once told a colleague, “Looks like I got an easy admit.” He just stared at me.

It didn’t take long to understand why.

Vitals can be stable. Labs can look clean. But patients—especially those we assume are “simple”—rarely are. There’s a language beyond numbers: the way a patient breathes, a hesitation in their tone, the look in a spouse’s eye. Over …

The quiet grief behind hospital walls

Aaron Grubner, MD

Physician

July 15, 2025

The slow beeping of the monitor comes to a halt and someone eventually shuts it off.

Click clack.

The machines are quiet now. I take one more look at the innocent, boyish young face and wonder what kind of life he had led. I leave the room, along with the rest of the team. A hand draws the curtain closed.

Death.

Quite literally, the most final force on Earth. The permanent, irreversible cessation of …

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The quiet grief behind hospital walls

Dear July intern: It’s normal to feel clueless—here’s what matters

Tomi Mitchell, MD

Education

July 13, 2025

It’s July—the official new year for medicine.

You’re either a brand-new intern, wide-eyed and exhausted, equal parts proud and terrified, or maybe you’re stepping into fellowship, wondering how you’re suddenly supposed to be the expert. You’re navigating hallways you haven’t mapped yet, still figuring out whether your badge works on the north wing or the south elevator, trying to remember where you parked, and already questioning if you made a huge …

A physician’s reflection on love, loss, and finding meaning in grief [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

July 1, 2025

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

Hospitalist Jasminka Vukanovic-Criley discusses her article, “When grief hits all at once: a morning of heartbreak and love.” Jasminka shares a deeply personal account of a Saturday morning where unexpected news of …

Why compassion—not credentials—defines great doctors

Dr. Saad S. Alshohaib

Physician

July 1, 2025

I entered medicine like many young physicians do—eager, determined, and drawn to its promise of excellence. The white coat, the respect, the thrill of diagnosing a rare disease or saving a critical life—all of it called to me with undeniable force. I studied relentlessly, passed my boards, published research, and spoke on conference stages. Those achievements came with a sense of pride, even joy. But they were not the full …

Why women doctors are still mistaken for nurses

Emma Fenske, DO

Physician

June 21, 2025

It was early morning—likely the first appointment of the day. The music in the waiting room had not even been turned on yet, and the smell of coffee was just beginning to meet the air. After a few minutes, I was called back to a room and sat in the exam chair, already in scrubs and mentally preparing to scurry off to work right after. In fact, I was already …

When doctors forget how to examine: the danger of lost clinical skills

Mike Stillman, MD

Physician

June 20, 2025

An older woman with osteoporosis fell at home, developed back pain, then went to urgent care and was diagnosed with a “muscle strain.” During a follow-up visit in my office, she told me she’d had transient urinary incontinence after her fall, and on exam she had midline back tenderness, hip flexor weakness, and hyper-reflexive knee jerks. This woman had suffered a vertebral fracture, not a pulled muscle.

One of my patients …

How doctors took back control from hospital executives

Gene Uzawa Dorio, MD

Physician

June 14, 2025

Several decades ago at our local hospital in northern Los Angeles County, an onslaught against doctors began. The administration marginalized and discredited them. It was not due to a lack of medical skill or knowledge, as certain physicians were labeled “troublemakers” and “threats” to health care in our small community.

The chief of staff and I, the chairman of the Department of Medicine, were members of the staff, some of whom …

From hospital bed to harsh truths: a writer’s unexpected journey

Raymond Abbott

Conditions

May 30, 2025

It’s 4:30 in the morning. I can see the small clock across the room. I lie in a hospital bed. The woman who approaches, the nurse, I know a bit. She greets me with, “I need to take your vitals.” I know there is more to her message, but she doesn’t say so yet. The light around my bed is dim.

I’m in a hospital, a large one in a fairly …

More than a meeting: Finding education, inspiration, and community in internal medicine [PODCAST]

American College of Physicians & The Podcast by KevinMD

Physician

May 26, 2025

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

Former American College of Physicians treasurer and infectious disease physician Janet A. Jokela discusses her article, “Internal Medicine 2025: inspiration at the annual meeting.” She shares her personal reflections on the profound …

Voices from the inside: 35 years as a nurse in health care

Virginia DeFranco, RN

Conditions

May 19, 2025

After 35 years in health care, I thought I’d seen it all—until it happened to me.

We talk about burnout, compassion fatigue, and systemic issues in medicine. But there’s something more silent, more painful, and far more personal happening in hospitals and clinics across the country: Generational warfare.

The young eat the old. And the old? We’re expected to disappear quietly.

In my early years, experience was respected. Elders were mentors. Wisdom mattered.

Now, …

How a $75 million jet brought down America’s boldest doctor

Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA

Physician

May 15, 2025

This article is satire.

Dr. Donovan Trumble was not your average internist.

In fact, if you asked him, he wasn’t your average anything.

He called himself “the most successful physician-researcher in America—maybe ever,” and once declared during grand rounds, “If Sir William Osler were alive today, he’d be my opening act.”

To the faculty at the Ivy League medical school where Trumble had once chaired the Department of Clinical Egotism (officially “Translational Medicine,” but …

Nurses are the backbone of medicine—and they deserve better

Matthew Moeller, MD

Physician

May 10, 2025

As we near the end of Nurses Week, I can’t help but express my gratitude for our true health care heroes: nurses. Throughout my 20 years in medicine, I have worked with nurses on a daily basis. As an innocent, bumbling medical student, they would teach me how to place an IV or how to supplement potassium. In residency, they would teach the ins and outs of ICU care even …

Residency as rehearsal: the new pediatric hospitalist fellowship requirement scam

Anonymous

Physician

May 2, 2025

Hypothetically, imagine you complete three years of internal medicine residency; working nights, managing complex cases, making real decisions. Then you’re told: To work in the hospital, in the in-patient setting, you must complete additional years of fellowship training.

At that point, a reasonable person might ask: Wait, what was residency for? If three years of supervised, graduated responsibility isn’t sufficient preparation, then either the residency is flawed, or the requirement is …

When grief hits all at once: a morning of heartbreak and love

Jasminka Vukanovic-Criley, MD

Physician

April 26, 2025

This beautiful Saturday morning began like many other mornings with a heart full of love and hope. Gentle rays of sunlight filtered through the windows. Their warm glow whispered hope and promise of another good day. This morning, like many others, I woke up early. But little did I know the day would bring a flood of emotions for which I was unprepared. Indeed, as the morning unfolded, my spirit …

Pope Francis dies at 88. What his care reveals about America’s failing hospitals.

Gene Uzawa Dorio, MD

Conditions

April 21, 2025

Pope Francis passed away this morning at the age of 88. Just weeks ago, he had spent 38 days hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for what was described as “double pneumonia,” before returning to his Vatican apartment to recover.

Had he been an American hospitalized in the U.S., he might not have made it even that far.

As both a geriatric doctor and a patient, I have seen firsthand how the U.S. …

When empathy becomes “toxic”

Vijay Rajput, MD

Physician

April 19, 2025

For years, empathy has been seen as a moral virtue that binds relationships, the antidote to pain and suffering while caring for patients. But lately, empathy is facing a surprising backlash in society and the medical profession. From being called “toxic” to being labeled outright as a “sin,” the virtue of feeling others’ pain is now under sharper scrutiny across ideological, psychological, and even religious groups within our society.

In caregiving …

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When empathy becomes “toxic”

How hospitals are quietly taking control of physicians

Allan Dobzyniak, MD

Physician

April 2, 2025

Doctor, if you have recently had occasion to be granted a visit with upper hospital management in the plush executive suite, most surely it was you who stood out quite conspicuously. Being greeted, hopefully politely, by one of the administrative secretaries, you were asked to be seated and wait along with others—consultants, lower-level management, salesmen, business associates, insurance executives, and maybe even golf buddies. Notable was that you, the physician, …

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