Primary care

8,116 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 5

Shifting health care toward prevention, not just treatment

August 4, 2026Aug 4, 2026

Health care has never possessed more scientific knowledge, more sophisticated technology, or more specialized expertise than it does today. Yet despite these remarkable advances, chronic disease continues to rise, health care costs continue to escalate, physician burnout persists, and patients…

This paradox raises an important question. A probable explanation: Perhaps our greatest challenge is not a lack of scientific progress. …

Physician voices

What 40 years of technology in medicine gained and cost

Mark McConnell, MD

August 2, 2026Aug 2, 2026

I have been practicing medicine since 1985. With good fortune, I hope to continue practicing for several more years. When younger physicians ask what medicine was like when I began, I am careful not to romanticize the past. The pre-computer…

I have been practicing medicine since 1985. With good fortune, I hope to continue practicing for several more years.

When younger physicians ask what medicine was like when I began, I am careful not to romanticize the past. The pre-computer era had many shortcomings. Paper charts were often unavailable. Records were fragmented. Laboratory results could be misplaced. Communication was slower. Finding information could be frustrating. Many aspects of modern medicine are …

Conditions and diseases

Healing with compassion: Hope is a key ingredient to survival

Ashley McCray

August 2, 2026Aug 2, 2026

It was all over his face. I couldn't help but notice Mr. P's unspoken disappointment in missing the target goal weight for his anticipated bariatric (weight loss) surgery, the recommended treatment for his obesity. The number on the scale this…

It was all over his face. I couldn’t help but notice Mr. P’s unspoken disappointment in missing the target goal weight for his anticipated bariatric (weight loss) surgery, the recommended treatment for his obesity. The number on the scale this day had trended slightly upward from what was documented at his last appointment. The physician was displeased at his noncompliance in picking up the medicine that was prescribed to him, …

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Conditions and diseases

Moral agency in medicine is quietly disappearing

Richard A. Lawhern, PhD

July 31, 2026Jul 31, 2026

According to Wikipedia and most dictionaries, "moral agency" is an individual's ability to make moral choices based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is someone "who is capable…

According to Wikipedia and most dictionaries, “moral agency” is an individual’s ability to make moral choices based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is someone “who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong” and who is responsible for correcting their own errors.

As a health care educator with three decades of research experience in …

Conditions and diseases

Dental misinformation is now a patient-safety issue

Daria Buinevich, DDS

July 31, 2026Jul 31, 2026

A patient sees a short video promising to remove tartar at home. Another learns that bleeding gums can be "cured" with a particular oil. Someone with tooth pain orders a temporary filling kit online and postpones seeing a dentist because…

A patient sees a short video promising to remove tartar at home. Another learns that bleeding gums can be “cured” with a particular oil. Someone with tooth pain orders a temporary filling kit online and postpones seeing a dentist because the pain briefly improves. As a dentist, I have seen how quickly a confident online claim can influence a patient’s decisions. Often, the patient is not being careless. They are …

Physician finance

The life hack that could undo medical debt credit reports

Dan Pierce, MD

July 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026

"I just don't pay them." I was with a group of acquaintances, and we had been engaged in a spirited conversation about the costs of medical care. While I was the only one present who worked in health care, the…

“I just don’t pay them.”

I was with a group of acquaintances, and we had been engaged in a spirited conversation about the costs of medical care. While I was the only one present who worked in health care, the group itself was fairly homogenous, with individuals in similar stages of life and financial security. Access to health insurance was of no concern in this group, and neither would have been …

Physician voices

Cookbook medicine and the loss of clinical judgment

Peter R. Kowey, MD

July 29, 2026Jul 29, 2026

"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." - Robert Frost Since the publication of my first nonfiction book, Failure to…

“The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”
– Robert Frost

Since the publication of my first nonfiction book, Failure to Treat: How a Broken Healthcare System Puts Patients and Practitioners at Risk, I have been deluged with medical stories. In fact, nearly everyone who has read the book has been anxious …

Conditions and diseases

What does humor in medicine actually do to the body?

Andrea Hayes, MD

July 28, 2026Jul 28, 2026

An excerpt from Peach Cobbler Is Not a Fruit. Laughter is good medicine. I don't merely believe that. I have prescribed it, inhaled it, survived by it, and, on more than one occasion, snorted it through my nose at profoundly…

An excerpt from Peach Cobbler Is Not a Fruit.

Laughter is good medicine. I don’t merely believe that. I have prescribed it, inhaled it, survived by it, and, on more than one occasion, snorted it through my nose at profoundly inappropriate moments.

Medicine is serious business. Patients entrust their bodies, fears, secrets, and occasionally their entire futures to the care and judgment of their physicians. The work demands rational thought, scientific …

Physician voices

Health care resists change for the same reason planets do

Narinder Singh Parhar, MD

July 27, 2026Jul 27, 2026

Science, especially Newtonian physics, has taught us to appreciate the elegant laws that govern the physical world. A moving object carries momentum. A stationary object possesses inertia. One tends to keep moving in its current direction until acted upon by an external force. The other resists movement until sufficient force is applied. These principles explain planets, automobiles, athletes, and machinery.

Perhaps less obviously, they also offer a useful way to understand …

Conditions and diseases

Why delayed dental care is rarely about not caring

Daria Buinevich, DDS

July 24, 2026Jul 24, 2026

When a patient arrives with advanced dental disease, it is easy to focus on the visible damage: untreated decay, infection, pain, or tooth loss. The question often becomes, "Why did they wait so long?" But that question can oversimplify a…

When a patient arrives with advanced dental disease, it is easy to focus on the visible damage: untreated decay, infection, pain, or tooth loss. The question often becomes, “Why did they wait so long?” But that question can oversimplify a much more complicated reality. Delayed dental care is not always the result of indifference or poor personal choices. For many people, it reflects a combination of financial pressure, limited access, …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Why women doctors get sick and blame themselves for it [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

July 20, 2026Jul 20, 2026

Women doctors joke about being cursed with every complication, but what if the job itself is quietly damaging their health? Jessie Mahoney, a pediatrician and certified coach, returns to share her own story of pregnancy complications, an ICU stay, and…

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Conditions and diseases

Why medication access fails even the best-case patient

Alexandro Vasquez, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC

July 19, 2026Jul 19, 2026

A medication was recommended to me a week ago. It still has not reached me. I prescribe medications for a living. I know where an order can stall: awaiting a signature, sent but never received, delayed by an authorization, or…

None of that has moved my prescription. There is no one covering the service, so it …

Health policy

The measure of medicine is outcomes, not prestige

Jenny Christensen, APRN

July 18, 2026Jul 18, 2026

Institutional credibility and clinical excellence are not synonymous. One is conferred by reputation; the other is earned through knowledge, compassion, judgment, and the trust of patients. Hospitals, academic centers, and large physician groups have earned tremendous respect, and rightly so.…

Institutional credibility and clinical excellence are not synonymous. One is conferred by reputation; the other is earned through knowledge, compassion, judgment, and the trust of patients.

Hospitals, academic centers, and large physician groups have earned tremendous respect, and rightly so. But excellent medicine is also practiced every day in independent clinics, private practices, and community-based settings that exist outside traditional health care systems.

My own journey through medicine has given me a …

Conditions and diseases

Smile confidence is a real mental health concern

Kambiz Kamangar, DDS

July 18, 2026Jul 18, 2026

A patient once sat in my chair with her hand covering her mouth mid-conversation. She wasn't cold. She wasn't shy. She was ashamed of her smile, and that shame had quietly shaped nearly every social interaction she'd had for years.…

A patient once sat in my chair with her hand covering her mouth mid-conversation. She wasn’t cold. She wasn’t shy. She was ashamed of her smile, and that shame had quietly shaped nearly every social interaction she’d had for years.

In over eighteen years of dental practice, I’ve seen this pattern more times than I can count. Patients come in for a clinical procedure, but what they’re really carrying through the …

Conditions and diseases

Oral health literacy is the barrier we rarely name

Daria Buinevich, DDS

July 17, 2026Jul 17, 2026

During my years in dentistry, I often noticed something that extended far beyond clinical care. Many people were not ignoring their oral health because they did not care. They were making decisions based on incomplete, confusing, or inaccurate information. Some…

Some believed that bleeding gums were normal. Others assumed that dental visits were only necessary when pain appeared. Many did not realize that everyday habits, such as frequent consumption of sugary drinks …

Conditions and diseases

We can rewrite DNA but not deliver it in time

Shaan R. Mody

July 15, 2026Jul 15, 2026

She was seven months old when her parents first noticed it. Not the peaceful stillness of sleep, but something heavier. Her arms, which had once reached for hanging toys, had grown quiet. Her head, once held with the wobbly determination of a healthy infant, began to drift. The milestones that seemed to be arriving suddenly began moving in reverse.

Weeks later, a child neurologist delivered the diagnosis: spinal muscular atrophy type …

Physician voices

The hospital that made us cut my child’s care in half

Christine Marie Deeths, MD

July 15, 2026Jul 15, 2026

When I was in medical school one day the dean stood up in front of my class holding a cheap, plain pen. He just stood there holding it for a minute without uttering a word. He then very slowly and…

When I was in medical school one day the dean stood up in front of my class holding a cheap, plain pen. He just stood there holding it for a minute without uttering a word. He then very slowly and deliberately said, “This, this pen is the most expensive tool you will ever hold. With this you will during your career spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.” He continued to …

The Podcast by KevinMD

Why the cure for physician burnout is seeing fewer patients [PODCAST]

The Podcast by KevinMD

July 13, 2026Jul 13, 2026

For 15 years, a primary care physician saw more than 22 patients a day and slowly lost herself to exhaustion. It followed her home every night and onto every vacation. In this episode, Jerina Gani explains how she broke that…

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Medical education

Family medicine match rates signal a workforce problem

Ronald L. Lindsay, MD

July 13, 2026Jul 13, 2026

Each March, the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) Match offers a snapshot of how the next generation of physicians views the landscape of American medicine. The 2026 Match set records in nearly every category: more applicants, more positions filled, and high overall match rates. But beneath the headline strength, two datapoints tell a more complicated story about the future of primary care.

Family medicine once again posted one of the lowest …

Health policy

Canada’s primary care investment is missing a North Star

Ivy Oandasan, MD

July 12, 2026Jul 12, 2026

Something remarkable is happening in Canadian health policy right now. After decades of incremental change, provinces and territories are making serious, sustained investments in primary care. These bilateral health agreements represent a genuine federal-provincial commitment, billions of dollars directed toward…

The people designing these investments care deeply. The intent is right. But when the accountability reviews come, how will …

Primary care

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