Pediatrics

Why medicine ignores its Cassandras: a case study in health disparities

Conditions

March 9, 2026

Cassandra saw the future. No one believed her. Medicine has its Cassandras too, clinicians who name the failures before anyone else. Their warnings are dismissed, their foresight ignored, until the damage is undeniable.

This essay is built on an AI comparison. It set my 1998 Nisonger grant beside my 2025 testimony. The themes are identical: health disparities, economic justice, ethics, listening to families. I named them then. I name them now. …

Leadership in action: How a broken pager fixed a hospital

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

February 24, 2026

Sometimes, the smallest failures expose the largest truths. At a remote Air Force base hospital, a silent pager revealed not my incompetence, but my supervisor’s lack of leadership, and set in motion a chain of events that reshaped the hospital’s command structure and ultimately influenced the future of Air Force pediatrics.

What began as a malfunction during an award ceremony became the catalyst for decisive leadership, a reorganization of medical services, …

The pause medicine never taught us to take

Mary Wilde, MD

Physician

February 17, 2026

As physicians, most of us do not need another Zoom webinar on burnout; we need open space.

Even at the earliest stages of training, we are made to feel that we cannot take a break. In a med school course I teach, I assigned a renewal activity with a short reflection. Some protested, but most expressed gratitude for an assigned pause.

Many admitted how afraid they felt to step away, to take …

The honest broker in pediatrics: Building the medical home

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

February 17, 2026

When I arrived at a regional military hospital, it was not a dispensary or a community clinic. It was the referral hospital for the northern tier missile and bomber bases, positioned just below the major medical centers. We were second tier, but the stakes were global.

Into that setting, I brought the medical home and a mini-developmental clinic. Through a program for exceptional family members, families from around the world found …

Pediatric care in Ghana: Addressing malnutrition and sickle cell disease

Benedicta Yayra Adu-Parku

Conditions

February 15, 2026

In Accra, Ghana, the ward glowed ocean blue under phototherapy lamps. Chlorhexidine lingered in the air, cardboard rustled beneath a mother’s thin blanket, and the soft gasp of a preterm infant punctuated the hum of monitors. A baby’s drool pooled at the corner of her mouth; when my gloved fingers brushed her cheek, she flinched. Her body spoke a language beyond words, and her mother translated every twitch with love.

Behind …

The impact of CDC’s new childhood immunization guidance

Umayr R. Shaikh, MPH

Conditions

February 10, 2026

For most of my life, preventable infectious diseases existed at the margins of medicine. Influenza was seasonal but manageable. Hepatitis outbreaks were contained. Childhood hospitalizations from rotavirus or meningococcal disease were rare enough to be notable. COVID-19 may have shattered predictability, but even then, many of us believed the lessons we learned would be followed by renewed investment in prevention.

Instead, we now stand at a crossroads.

A crossroads in prevention

Recent guideline …

When language becomes the barrier: IMGs and autism diagnoses

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Conditions

February 9, 2026

I once left grand rounds with a donut and a fake pager buzz because I couldn’t understand the speaker, who often was a natural Mandarin or Arabic speaker. Humor aside, this was not just my problem; it was a systemic failure.

I have spent decades in developmental-behavioral pediatrics, and one truth has never changed: Communication is the currency of medicine. Without it, trust collapses.

International medical graduates (IMGs) are vital to our …

Why scale of effort matters more than ego in health care

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

February 4, 2026

The inventor of the Post-it note deserves a medal. Not for convenience, but for clarity. In my practice, those little squares became tactical weapons, bright flags of truth in a sea of institutional delusion. My mother once told Kathy, before our wedding, never to touch the scraps of paper I left everywhere. She understood that my visual memory depended on those markers. Each Post-it was a breadcrumb, a map, a …

From pediatrics to geriatrics: How treating children prepared me for dementia care

Loretta Cody, MD

Physician

February 3, 2026

As a pediatrician, I spent many years in a busy, at times hectic, mostly enjoyable practice before retiring and segueing into teaching. Now as an adjunct professor in pediatrics, I aspire to help future health care workers pursue a career in pediatrics.

I have often asked myself: Have I missed anything about the day-to-day of practicing pediatrics?

My answer was what I truly missed were the interactions I had with the children: …

Why AAP funding cuts threaten the future of pediatric health care

Umayr R. Shaikh, MPH

Policy

February 2, 2026

During my pediatrics rotation in my third year of medical school, the most important skill I learned was how to listen more carefully.

Children rarely have the language or power to fully articulate their needs. They are forced to rely on adults, systems, and institutions to advocate on their behalf. In pediatrics, that responsibility is not an abstract idea. It shows up in exam rooms where parents must choose to pay …

A blueprint for pediatric residency training reform

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

January 31, 2026

The false promise of efficiency

The latest punditry calls for three-year medical schools, stripped of ethics and other vital subjects, with less clinical training. The rationale? Efficiency. The result? A generation of physicians unprepared for the complexity of children’s lives.

General pediatricians themselves admit in published surveys that they “know squat” about developmental-behavioral pediatrics (DBP) after residency. Yet the proposed solution is to shorten training further. That is not reform; it is …

Why I chose disruption over conformity in medicine

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

January 25, 2026

I am no poster boy. I deal with significant physical challenges and mobility issues. The toll continues. I face major medical procedures in the coming year, the price of decades spent serving others while refusing to serve the system. I am actively planning my eventual funeral, which many in my field are likely looking forward to. I served the people, not the system. That choice was the death knell for …

The impact of war on the innocence of children

Michele Luckenbaugh

Conditions

January 23, 2026

They are not born into battle.
They arrive with open hands,
with laughter,
with faith that the world will keep them safe.

Yet, men who are not content with peace
clench their fists around power,
mistaking domination for strength
and control for legacy.
They draw borders with bullets
and call it victory.

In their pursuit to prove themselves,
they let the bombs fall.
Roads darken with blood.
Homes become rubble.
The sky learns the language of fire.

And in the wreckage stand the children.

They watch …

Why ACIP’s ruling on universal hepatitis B vaccination endangers newborns

A. Lane Baldwin, MD

Physician

January 12, 2026

On December 5, I started my hospital shift learning that the ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) had voted against offering universal administration of hepatitis B vaccine at birth, opposing the long-standing practice endorsed by experts. After a long day of examining newborn babies and counseling families, my mind drifted back to the announcement and unearthed a memory of a boy named Sam.

Sam was born a healthy newborn to loving …

Examining the rural divide in pediatric health care

James Bianchi

Policy

January 9, 2026

A vacant expression covered the face of a 14-year-old boy who lay almost lifeless in a hospital bed, completely unaware of the frantic hustle that surrounded him. Once an extraordinary student-athlete, intracerebral hemorrhage unjustly robbed him of his robust character. This was my most significant interaction with a patient. I knew him not as the student-athlete, nor the boy from neurosurgery, but as my youngest brother. With limited access to …

The Chief Poisoner: a chemotherapy poem

Ron Louie, MD

Physician

January 7, 2026

An excerpt from What the Physician Whispered.

You are looking at me, little one,
perhaps wondering who I might be.
Even though I might seem friendly,
you seem wary and frightened, not yet
used to seeing strangers and busy places.
Someone thought maybe I might help save you.

I offer to give you poison.

They have not told you, because they do not know
how sick you really are, meaning how close you are
to an unexpected conclusion that …

Read more…

The Chief Poisoner: a chemotherapy poem

Pediatric respite homes provide a survival mechanism for struggling families [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

Podcast

January 1, 2026

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

Certified coach and professor Kathleen Muldoon and co-founder of Ryan House and Children’s Respite Homes of America Jonathan Cottor discuss the article “The need for pediatric respite care.” Kathleen shares the personal …

The impact of policy cuts on ableism in health care

Ashna Shome, MD

Policy

December 19, 2025

I am a disabled doctor. Being in residency, where many of my peers are young and able-bodied, I entered medicine with extensive experience on the other side of the examination table. I also entered medicine wanting to emulate the best of the care I received, and minimize the worst.

Over time, I have met more and more doctors like me who struggle with temporary or permanent disability. I see how systems …

Why medicine needs military-style leadership and reconnaissance

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

December 18, 2025

Robert E. Lee did not lose Gettysburg because he lacked courage or troops. He lost because he was blind. His cavalry commander, J.E.B. Stuart, galloped off on his own, leaving Lee without reconnaissance. By the time Stuart returned, George Custer cut him to pieces. Leadership without recon is leadership without eyes.

Screening tests are the point in a military formation. They provide the initial lay of the land. In medicine, they …

Why pediatric leadership fails without logistics and tactics

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

Physician

December 16, 2025

In my previous critiques of the failure of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP), and the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (SDBP) titled “Why developmental and behavioral pediatrics faces a recruitment collapse,” I argued that “leadership presence without leadership action is theater.” The SDBP strategy had no actionable items.

Any military historian will tell you that in addition to an overall strategy, you …