There are some patients whose names change the atmosphere of a day before they have even entered the room. You see the name on your schedule and feel it immediately. It may be a glance at the clock, a slight…
There are some patients whose names change the atmosphere of a day before they have even entered the room.
You see the name on your schedule and feel it immediately. It may be a glance at the clock, a slight tightening in your chest, or the quiet hope that the visit might somehow be shorter than you remember. Every clinician knows this feeling, although few of us admit it openly.
An excerpt from I Left Anyway: The Life I Was Supposed to Want. The schedule looked ordinary, which almost made it harder to explain. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The computer screen asked me to log in again because five…
The schedule looked ordinary, which almost made it harder to explain. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The computer screen asked me to log in again because five minutes of stillness was enough for it to decide I had disappeared. There was no collapse that day, no scandal, no final straw that would make the story easy.
Marc Stone, MD served as deputy director for safety in the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research's Division of Psychiatry until 2024. Martha Rosenberg: Recently, in the Cato Institute journal Regulation you and co-authors Andrew Mosholder, MD and Tarek…
Marc Stone, MD served as deputy director for safety in the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s Division of Psychiatry until 2024.
Martha Rosenberg: Recently, in the Cato Institute journal Regulation you and co-authors Andrew Mosholder, MD and Tarek Hammad, MD wrote that the FDA’s antidepressant warning did not kill American children through discouraging prescriptions as alleged in an earlier story. What did yours and Dr. Hammad’s earlier research on …
Medicine tells itself a reassuring story: Excellence is rewarded, integrity is recognized, and systems ultimately support the clinicians who work to make them better. But anyone who has spent a career inside the machinery knows the truth is more complicated.…
Medicine tells itself a reassuring story: Excellence is rewarded, integrity is recognized, and systems ultimately support the clinicians who work to make them better. But anyone who has spent a career inside the machinery knows the truth is more complicated. In systems without explicit ethical goals, achievement is not celebrated. It is punished.
Across decades in developmental-behavioral pediatrics, disability advocacy, and hospital leadership, I have watched a quiet, corrosive pattern repeat …
We discuss quite a bit in clinical practice about why we have mental health issues, and how a feeling of anxiety often has significant nuance in terms of diagnosis. Let's start with good old-fashioned anxiety. Anxiety is the feeling of…
We discuss quite a bit in clinical practice about why we have mental health issues, and how a feeling of anxiety often has significant nuance in terms of diagnosis. Let’s start with good old-fashioned anxiety. Anxiety is the feeling of being in danger or there being some sort of threat when one is not present, and this comes down to how our brains are wired for survival.
Mental health policy has gained increasingly earned attention in the last decade, and policy solutions are needed now more than ever. According to the 2016 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, the United States has the second-highest rate of self-reported…
Mental health policy has gained increasingly earned attention in the last decade, and policy solutions are needed now more than ever. According to the 2016 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, the United States has the second-highest rate of self-reported emotional distress among high-income nations. Among high-earning adults in these countries, those in the U.S. were the most likely to have been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or other mental health …
My wife worked as a retail store manager for twelve years. We often joked that her customers were one psychiatric hospitalization away from turning into my patients. As my career progressed, our jokes became a disappointing reality. My meetings with…
My wife worked as a retail store manager for twelve years. We often joked that her customers were one psychiatric hospitalization away from turning into my patients. As my career progressed, our jokes became a disappointing reality. My meetings with insurance reviewers, outpatient clinics, and even hospital administrators referenced “consumers” and “clients.” The issue with the use of the term “provider” becomes more important if our patients are seen as …
Picture two patients seated in the same waiting room, hearing the same diagnosis from the same physician on the same day. From that moment, their lives diverge, each setting out on a journey shaped by individual choices, relationships, and ways…
Picture two patients seated in the same waiting room, hearing the same diagnosis from the same physician on the same day. From that moment, their lives diverge, each setting out on a journey shaped by individual choices, relationships, and ways of coping.
For one patient, the diagnosis becomes a consuming shadow. Every ache signals a smaller world. Fear and anger begin to strain relationships that were once strong. Work no longer …
In 2020, during a period of severe insomnia, I took one drop of CBD oil hoping it would help me sleep. At the time, CBD was described everywhere as natural, gentle, and safe. I had read stories about people using…
In 2020, during a period of severe insomnia, I took one drop of CBD oil hoping it would help me sleep. At the time, CBD was described everywhere as natural, gentle, and safe. I had read stories about people using it for sleep, anxiety, and pain. I was desperate for rest, but I was also cautious. I did not take a large dose. I took one drop.
At two in the morning, grief looked like psychosis. I remember being irritated before I even saw her. At the time, I was working back home in Malaysia. The emergency department fluorescent lights were too bright, my head heavy with…
At two in the morning, grief looked like psychosis.
I remember being irritated before I even saw her. At the time, I was working back home in Malaysia. The emergency department fluorescent lights were too bright, my head heavy with interrupted sleep, the air-conditioning turned low enough that the corridors felt vaguely refrigerated. Someone from the emergency department had telephoned psychiatry on call (me) requesting an urgent review of an elderly …
On June 29, 2026, psychologist Adam Omary published a landmark observation in the Boston Globe, titled "The disability accommodation trap on college campuses." As he observed: "It was well-intentioned when the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended in 2008 to…
On June 29, 2026, psychologist Adam Omary published a landmark observation in the Boston Globe, titled “The disability accommodation trap on college campuses.” As he observed:
“It was well-intentioned when the Americans with Disabilities Act was amended in 2008 to include mental health conditions and learning disabilities as eligible for accommodations. But in practice, it created incentives for overdiagnosis. As The Harvard Crimson reported in December, the share of …
Health care professionals are trained to diagnose, decide, and act under pressure. Yet one of the most important factors influencing clinical judgment, patient trust, and resilience is often overlooked: emotional self-regulation. Emotional regulation is not just a personal wellness practice…
Health care professionals are trained to diagnose, decide, and act under pressure. Yet one of the most important factors influencing clinical judgment, patient trust, and resilience is often overlooked: emotional self-regulation.
Emotional regulation is not just a personal wellness practice that clinicians might pursue outside work to reduce stress or improve work-life balance. Today, it is increasingly being recognized as an essential clinical competency to practice, to reset, and to renew …
Every year, my desk fills with increasingly complex paperwork. School systems, testing boards, and corporate human resources departments request formal validation to grant specific accommodations, most commonly extended time or modified environments, for individuals diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.…
Every year, my desk fills with increasingly complex paperwork. School systems, testing boards, and corporate human resources departments request formal validation to grant specific accommodations, most commonly extended time or modified environments, for individuals diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. As a psychiatrist who has spent decades observing the human condition, I find myself increasingly reluctant to sign these forms.
This hesitation does not stem from skepticism about the condition itself. …
A week off does not fix burnout. The same problems are waiting when you get home, and the same person is walking back into them. Stacey Funt is a radiologist who runs a boutique wellness adventure travel company, mostly for…
A week off does not fix burnout. The same problems are waiting when you get home, and the same person is walking back into them. Stacey Funt is a radiologist who runs a boutique wellness adventure travel company, mostly for women in their 40s through 60s, including a high share of physicians. She discusses the KevinMD article “Why immersive …
The longer I've practiced medicine, the more uncomfortable I've grown with the word resilience. I'm a physician, and I am also a person in long-term recovery from addiction. Both of those identities have shaped everything about how I move through…
The longer I’ve practiced medicine, the more uncomfortable I’ve grown with the word resilience.
I’m a physician, and I am also a person in long-term recovery from addiction. Both of those identities have shaped everything about how I move through health care, and nowhere do they collide more sharply than in the culture of resilience that medicine holds so dear. We praise it like a virtue. We stitch it into wellness …
There's a quiet assumption baked into how most physicians think about their careers: If you have the capacity to earn a certain income, you should. More RVUs, more shifts, more call. The math always seems to point in one direction.…
There’s a quiet assumption baked into how most physicians think about their careers: If you have the capacity to earn a certain income, you should. More RVUs, more shifts, more call. The math always seems to point in one direction.
I want to question that assumption, because I’m watching it cost the doctors I coach something they can’t get back. When physicians come to me feeling depleted, the first instinct, theirs …
When the pattern became impossible to ignore A patient came into the office after two or three days of cough, congestion, body aches, and fatigue. Fairly typical upper respiratory symptoms. I offered to test him for COVID. He scoffed and…
When the pattern became impossible to ignore
A patient came into the office after two or three days of cough, congestion, body aches, and fatigue. Fairly typical upper respiratory symptoms. I offered to test him for COVID. He scoffed and dismissively declined any viral testing.
Apparently he already “knew” what this was. According to him, it was “turning into bronchitis,” and what he “needed” was a Z-pack. I explained that after only …
Medical regulatory agencies play a foundational role in protecting patients and maintaining high professional standards. When rules are applied clearly, consistently, and supportively, they create space for physicians to deliver excellent care while sustaining their own well-being. Yet administrative burdens…
Medical regulatory agencies play a foundational role in protecting patients and maintaining high professional standards. When rules are applied clearly, consistently, and supportively, they create space for physicians to deliver excellent care while sustaining their own well-being. Yet administrative burdens and process complexities often contribute to stress. A promising solution lies in blending traditional oversight with restorative justice principles and a holistic health lens, approaches that address the whole person …
When a child is diagnosed with ADHD, the conversation is often much narrower. Medication. Maybe a school form. Maybe a vague suggestion to "try therapy." Then parents are sent back into the same exhausted home, the same chaotic mornings, the…
When a child is diagnosed with ADHD, the conversation is often much narrower. Medication. Maybe a school form. Maybe a vague suggestion to “try therapy.” Then parents are sent back into the same exhausted home, the same chaotic mornings, the same homework battles, the same social struggles, the same emotional explosions, and the same school system that often does not know what to do with a child who is bright, …
A young Black woman waits in a psychiatric emergency room. She is grieving, traumatized, and depressed. The clinician, however, describes her as "guarded," "hostile," and "paranoid" in the chart. She leaves with a schizophrenia diagnosis, a prescription for a first-generation…
A young Black woman waits in a psychiatric emergency room. She is grieving, traumatized, and depressed. The clinician, however, describes her as “guarded,” “hostile,” and “paranoid” in the chart. She leaves with a schizophrenia diagnosis, a prescription for a first-generation antipsychotic, and a future shaped by a label she should never have received.
This is not a hypothetical situation. The Harvard Review of Psychiatry documented this case in 2023. She was …
