KevinMD.com

How Medicare’s new cut is closing private doctor practices [PODCAST]

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 23:00:55 +0000

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! A 30 to 40 percent Medicare cut just hit the doctors who keep your local hospital running, and the policy meant to stop hospital monopolies is accelerating them instead. John Birkmeyer, president of the medical group at Sound Physicians and a

Why women miss mammograms has nothing to do with awareness

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 21:00:19 +0000

For years, we have told women to get their mammograms. We have wrapped buildings in pink lights. We have filled October with ribbons, walks, campaigns, commercials, survivor stories, and reminders. We have created an entire cultural season around breast cancer awareness. And still, millions of women do not get screened on time. At some point,

How to rethink old breast implants as your body ages

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 19:00:13 +0000

Not long ago, a woman came into my office with breast implants that were forty-one years old. The implants were older than I am. As a plastic surgeon who specializes in breast and body procedures, that is the longest I have personally seen implants last. And honestly, my first reaction was probably the same reaction

When hearing loss in older adults steals connection

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 18:00:06 +0000

Life’s most meaningful memories are often built around shared experiences. Whether it’s a wedding toast, a graduation ceremony, a holiday dinner, or a grandchild’s soccer game, these are the moments families remember for years, not because of where they happened, but because of the conversations, laughter, and connections that took place along the way. Unfortunately,

CAR-T therapy can cure cancer. Why is it so underused?

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 17:00:10 +0000

Imagine a cancer therapy that literally poked holes in cancer cells, destroying them. Imagine that this therapy was approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration and was available to patients and their oncologists, and that it could cure your cancer. We imagine you would expect patients to clamor for this treatment, but this is

What public shaming reveals about a loss of trust

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 16:00:04 +0000

You have witnessed it, probably this week. A stranger correcting another stranger’s behavior. A comment on someone’s parenting, posted for an audience of thousands. A heated exchange over a parking spot that somehow becomes a referendum on someone’s character. The neighbor who reports another neighbor’s hedge height to the township. The pile-on that turns a

Why is patient care coordination now a DIY project?

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:00:59 +0000

I never expected to spend my retirement navigating a health care system that increasingly requires patients to do the work once handled by the system itself. But that is where we are. The modern patient must track their own records, coordinate their own referrals, chase their own authorizations, and solve problems that once belonged to

Why clinicians leave and why they used to stay

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 14:00:44 +0000

Health care keeps asking how to recruit more clinicians. That question matters. But it is not the only one. We should also be asking why fewer clinicians are staying. Across the country, health care leaders are sounding alarms about workforce shortages, access challenges, burnout, and turnover. The proposed solutions are familiar: increase reimbursement, recruit more

Why clinicians leave and why they used to stay originally appeared in KevinMD.com.

Rural health equity starts outside the clinic walls

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 13:00:49 +0000

Health care is fundamentally broken when the patient has to choose between a day’s wages and a basic clinical checkup. In the rural landscape of California’s Imperial Valley, this is not a hypothetical dilemma. It is a daily reality for thousands of frontline agricultural workers and underserved families. As a primary care physician operating independent

Why health care leaders keep blaming the system

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:00:47 +0000

Every day in medicine, we hear a familiar refrain: “I want to do the right thing for my patients, but my hands are tied by the system.” It is a comforting narrative. It casts doctors, administrators, and clinical leaders as helpless victims of an invisible and rigid machine. It positions them as casualties of a

Why health care leaders keep blaming the system originally appeared in KevinMD.com.

Psychological screening for cosmetic surgery is overdue

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:00:45 +0000

Cosmetic surgery is no longer a fringe conversation in Ghana. From rhinoplasty to liposuction and body contouring, aesthetic procedures are increasingly normalized, and this is mostly shaped by social media, global beauty standards, and a growing private health care market. But beneath this rising demand lies a quieter, more complex question: What if the problem

How true crime is radicalizing your kids online [PODCAST]

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 23:00:28 +0000

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Your child is messaging neo-Nazis on Discord, role-playing the Columbine shooting on Roblox, or making fan art of mass killers, and you have no idea. That is the pattern Matthew Turner, an emergency medicine physician at Hershey Medical Center, is now

Red lights, green lights, and the art of resilience

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 20:00:44 +0000

Unlike my earlier pieces, which often stitched together studies and data to build an argument, this one grew straight out of ordinary mornings. Pulling up to the same stop sign on my commute, waiting for the light to turn green, easing over to let an ambulance through with its urgent lights flashing. Touched by a

AI and clinical judgment belong together, not at war

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:00:07 +0000

For five years, I’ve navigated a complex medical journey. At age 38, at the peak of my health, I developed shortness of breath. I wrote it off as adult-onset asthma, fatigue, or “just getting older.” When I put a pulse ox on one morning and saw my numbers drop to 88 percent, I knew something

The hidden costs of anabolic steroid side effects

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 18:00:56 +0000

He sat down and said, “Doc, I just want to sleep again.” Marc, name and details changed, was 54. He hadn’t touched a needle in two years. His cardiologist was still watching his blood pressure. His body had not caught up with his decision to stop. His labs told the story his competition photos never

Evidence-based medicine needs a broader view of evidence

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:00:29 +0000

One of the most common questions physicians ask when evaluating a new idea is simple: “Where is the evidence?” It is an appropriate question. Scientific evidence has transformed modern medicine. It has helped identify beneficial therapies, eliminate ineffective treatments, improve patient safety, and extend human life. Few would argue against the enormous contributions of evidence-based

Are physicians and nonphysician clinicians interchangeable?

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:00:54 +0000

After years in medicine, one loses patience with arguments that blur needed distinctions. One of the most consequential appears in claims that expanding roles for nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and other nonphysician clinical providers justify treating them as equivalent to physicians. Because care is team-based and work often overlaps, we are asked to believe that

Language barriers in health care begin with the effort

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:00:24 +0000

When I was younger, I would sometimes take over a phone call for my parents, perhaps with the cable company or our phone service, if the conversation moved too fast or became too technical. They never asked me to do so in person, but occasionally, when I was feeling frustrated after tagging along on a

Ethylene in plants and animals: one molecule, two stories

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:00:23 +0000

Ethylene is one of the simplest organic molecules, yet it has remarkably different meanings in plants and animals. I first became interested in ethylene during my predoctoral years because of its familiar role in fruit ripening. My interest took a different direction during my early research years at Louisiana State University and later at Southern

Compassion fatigue is evidence of caring, not failing

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 13:00:27 +0000

There is a quiet accumulation that happens in caring professions. It rarely arrives all at once. More often, it builds gradually through repeated exposure to grief, crisis, trauma, fear, loss, and emotional responsibility. Over time, many health care workers begin carrying far more than their job descriptions ever acknowledge. We call it compassion fatigue, burnout,