KevinMD.com

ICU telemedicine done right is a program, not a doctor on a screen [PODCAST]

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 23:00:41 +0000

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes A patient in intensive care gets worse at 2 a.m., and the hospital has no critical care doctor in the building. Chris Gallagher, a cardiologist and founder of Access TeleCare, has spent 15 years building virtual care programs inside hospitals, and he explains why that gap

Voting and health outcomes: the cycle doctors ignore

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:00:00 +0000

Poor health can negatively impact any and all aspects of our lives, often discouraging us from participating fully in activities we otherwise would. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that those with worse health are also less likely to vote, or that voter participation is inversely associated with time spent in inpatient care. And while we

Whole-person care starts in the operating room

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 19:00:17 +0000

For most of my career, my work has begun at the moment a patient is most vulnerable. As an anesthesiologist, I meet people at the threshold of surgery, often anxious, sometimes in pain, and always placing extraordinary trust in a physician they may have met only minutes earlier. My responsibility is to protect them through

Whole-person care starts in the operating room originally appeared in KevinMD.com.

What doctors are talking about in 2026: AI, pain, burnout

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Clinicians wrote about AI more than anything else this quarter. Readers spent their time elsewhere: on burnout, on pain and opioids, and on what medicine costs the people who practice it. The first Insights by KevinMD report.

What doctors are talking about in 2026: AI, pain, burnout originally appeared in KevinMD.com.

AI hallucinations can invent what colleagues think of you

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 16:00:00 +0000

As physicians, we are increasingly told that artificial intelligence will summarize our work, amplify our ideas, and help readers understand complex issues. But what happens when AI begins describing not what we have said, but what it imagines others think about us? I recently conducted an informal experiment that exposed a troubling tendency in generative

Losing your athletic identity after a heart diagnosis

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 15:00:00 +0000

A routine EKG at my annual physical was supposed to be uneventful. Instead, it ended my marathon career. This past winter, I was diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a rare inherited heart disease associated with ventricular arrhythmias, sudden cardiac arrest, and an increased risk of life-threatening events during intense endurance exercise. I had

Lancaster County measles outbreak exposes a crisis of trust

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0000

For ten years, I lived with my family, 45 minutes from the rolling clover fields and dairy farms of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, iconic markers of a world defined by quiet tradition. Yet in the fall of 2026, this peaceful landscape has become a dark microcosm of modern medicine’s greatest crisis: the weaponization of politics, the

Slowing down in medicine starts with being interruptible

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 13:00:14 +0000

One morning I sat on the porch with a cup of tea and read slowly. Birds moved somewhere beyond the yard. Wind passed through the trees. The locusts were already loud. Nothing remarkable happened. And yet, after a while, I had the strange sense that my mind had returned to me. There was enough. Enough

Studying chronic pain suicide risk after opioid tapering

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000

CSI:OPIOIDs (Clinical Context of Suicide Following Opioid Transitions) is a rigorous scientific research study that systematically examines suicides occurring after prescription opioid dose reductions or discontinuations in patients with long-term (chronic) pain. Using psychological autopsy methods using detailed interviews with bereaved survivors combined with medical record review where obtainable, it seeks to characterize the multifactorial

Why milk banks in emergencies must plan like blood banks

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 11:00:12 +0000

As more families depend on human milk banks to meet the vital health and nutritional needs of babies, these facilities should implement emergency response plans, similar to those in blood and tissue banks and other critical medical services. Human milk is a lifesaving resource for preterm, low-birth-weight, and critically ill infants, with the World Health

Why women doctors leave in their forties and what keeps them [PODCAST]

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 23:00:08 +0000

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes Women physicians are walking away from practice in their forties, and not because they stopped loving the work. Dawn Sears is a gastroenterologist of 25 years and the founder of GutGirlMD Consulting, where she coaches physicians and runs Women in Medicine groups. This episode is based

The physician independent contractor path is a third option

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 16:00:00 +0000

For much of my medical training, I assumed there were two basic career paths for physicians. You could become an employed physician, trading some autonomy for stability and institutional support. Or you could own a practice, accepting the administrative and financial responsibilities of running a business in exchange for greater control. I ultimately chose neither.

Should medical student research be banned?

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 15:00:00 +0000

I run student and resident research projects as a trauma surgeon. For years the emails trickled in. This year they do not. Students arrive with a question and a draft and ask to be put on a paper. Large language models made literature searches, coding, chart review, and a first manuscript cheaper. They noticed. On

Should medical student research be banned? originally appeared in KevinMD.com.

3 ways communities can ease the loneliness epidemic

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 14:00:00 +0000

Imagine if we only treated lung cancer and never tackled smoking. Is that what we’re doing with depression? We always ask people struggling with depression to reach out. But maybe we should also ask whether anyone is within reach. Every October, Depression Awareness Month urges us to recognize the symptoms and seek help. As a

Dual-physician couples don’t need work-life balance

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 13:00:54 +0000

We get asked this all the time: “How do you do it? How do you raise kids, manage a household, remember that someone needs poster board for school tomorrow, get everyone to practice, and somehow sustain two demanding physician careers?” The answer is: not gracefully. We have calendars. We have systems. We have childcare. We

The 457(b) plan risks physicians sign without knowing

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:00:00 +0000

On a Tuesday evening, Dr. Anna Reyes is offered a partnership in an independent group across town. Accepting means leaving the nonprofit health system that employs her, and the buy-in requires capital within the year. Anna is hypothetical. That night, she opens the statement for the 457(b) deferred compensation plan she has funded for eight

The developmental pediatrician shortage is about to deepen

Sat, 03 Oct 2026 11:00:00 +0000

A recent Guardian article described a troubling reality unfolding across England: Nearly 1 million people are waiting for ADHD assessments, approximately 295,000 are awaiting autism evaluations, and some National Health Service (NHS) regions have imposed minimum waiting periods of two years before patients can even be assessed. “Two-year waiting times highlight NHS struggle with rise

Loneliness, not weakness, is driving women out of medicine [PODCAST]

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 23:00:16 +0000

Listen and followApple PodcastsSpotifyYouTubeMore apps · Browse all episodes Medical training hands you a ready-made group of friends. Then it ends, and many women physicians find themselves starting over alone in a new city. Cassie Burton Greenbaum is a pediatric critical care physician and the founder of Off Service Mom Co., a friendship matchmaking service

My first year as an attending physician almost broke me

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 19:00:46 +0000

I can finally write this essay almost five years out. That’s how long it took me to fully heal. To process. To gain perspective. I graduated residency in June 2020 at the height of COVID. I, along with my family, including my husband, two preschoolers, a four-month-old infant, and two dogs, drove from Miami to

Does CVS controlled substance policy put patients at risk?

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 18:00:00 +0000

Recently, a close friend called me in a panic. He was running dangerously low on lorazepam and asked if I could prescribe a small, bridging quantity over the weekend until his regular refill was due in a few days. As a physician, I wanted to help, but I first advised him to do what any