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Workplace violence in health care demands systemic change

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 22:00:09 +0000

Workplace violence in health care has become one of the most urgent occupational safety crises in the United States. Anesthesiologists, as well as other physicians, nurses, emergency personnel, therapists, technicians, and support staff, routinely face verbal threats, intimidation, physical assault, and psychological trauma while performing their duties. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and

How to verify health insurance coverage abroad before care

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 21:00:08 +0000

One of the most misleading words in international medical care is “worldwide.” A patient sees it in an insurance certificate and assumes the rest will be simple: Find a hospital abroad, show the policy card, and let the insurer settle the bill. Then the hospital asks for pre-authorization, the insurer asks for a treatment plan,

How doctors lost it: first the money, then the authority, now the thinking

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 20:00:07 +0000

The so-called deskilling of physicians is a red-hot subject in discussions of AI in health care. I hate the term “deskilling” just about as much as I hate the term “provider.” It is shallow and smacks of the MBA PowerPoint presentation. What is being lost is not some random skill. It is the physician’s core

Self-compassion for physicians starts on the pitch

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 19:00:15 +0000

Author’s note: Throughout this essay, I use the term “football,” the name used throughout most of the world and by FIFA itself. Readers in Canada and the United States may know the sport as soccer, but for the purposes of this reflection, football feels true to both the game and my own connection to it.

Why every ICU needs point-of-care EEG at the bedside

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 18:00:33 +0000

As a neurocritical care and stroke neurologist at a leading academic medical center, I’ve spent over two decades on the front lines, working with major community hospitals in triaging and receiving critically ill patients from the emergency department (ED) and intensive care unit (ICU). In my world, “Time is Brain” is not just a slogan

How nutrition for polycystic kidney disease changed my life

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 17:00:02 +0000

My grandfather died of a chronic kidney disease that he handed down without knowing it: polycystic kidney disease (PKD). My brother and I were born with it, too. It’s progressive and has no cure. For most of my twenties, I felt physically fine. Channeling my anxiety about the future, I became a biomedical scientist. I

In 2026, the surgical backlog has a training bottleneck

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 16:00:39 +0000

Every conversation about the surgical backlog focuses on the same fix: more OR time, more staff, more beds. That’s necessary, but it treats the bottleneck as a capacity problem. A second bottleneck nobody’s pricing in is how long it takes to produce a surgeon who can operate independently, and that number is quietly getting longer.

Leadership without a title starts with people

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 15:00:07 +0000

Some of the most influential leaders I have met over the past 20 years of my career in clinical research never sought the spotlight. They didn’t lead through authority or titles. They led through knowledge, integrity, humility, and the ability to bring out the best in the people around them. Early in my career, while

Leadership without a title starts with people originally appeared in KevinMD.com.

Financial freedom for physicians starts with purpose

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 14:00:34 +0000

What if pursuing wealth and pursuing purpose aren’t competing goals, but two essential components of a fulfilling career and life? When I speak to fellow physicians about their financial lives, the conversation usually focuses on either: The strategies and tactics of building wealth The purpose to which we would devote our lives if money weren’t

Firearm injury prevention can’t stop at the exam room

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 13:00:18 +0000

We health care providers are teachers. Teaching is rooted in the very definition of our profession: The word doctor derives from the Latin docere, meaning “to teach.” Every day, we counsel patients about smoking, nutrition, vaccines, substance use, and injury prevention because we know that education influences health behaviors, improves decision-making, and ultimately saves lives.

Postpartum psychosis misdiagnosis can delay urgent care

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 12:00:51 +0000

Modern health care is problematic for patients suffering from psychiatric emergencies. But for women suffering from postpartum psychosis, the combination of misinformation and fragmented care is distinctly dangerous. Without biomarkers, the sensitivity of psychiatric diagnoses relies on detailed evaluations, serial visits, and collateral information. If systems of care are not designed around this rubric, the

Why the burnout diagnosis keeps slipping through the net

Sat, 15 Aug 2026 11:00:39 +0000

Humankind has forever sought a peculiar comfort in naming. Anything our senses can perceive or our minds can conjure has been subject to a unique identifier. The mantle of an experience is heavy, but naming it makes it easier to bear. Perhaps there is comfort in knowing that the rocks weighing us down are the

When your labs are normal but you still feel sick [PODCAST]

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 23:00:15 +0000

Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Watch on YouTube. Catch up on old episodes! Your blood pressure is fine. Your cholesterol looks great. So why do you still feel exhausted, wired, and unwell? Internal medicine and functional medicine physician Shiv K. Goel returns to explain what standard lab panels miss when chronic stress quietly reshapes

Patent before publication without limiting open science

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 20:00:05 +0000

“Academia produces knowledge brilliantly. It distributes it appallingly,” Professor Dorina Buda wrote recently on LinkedIn. The statement made me pause because it brought back two experiences from nearly a decade apart. Both involved the same molecule, peroxynitrite, a peroxy isomer of nitrate. The first occurred when I knew virtually nothing about patents. The second came

Emergency alerts should never sit behind a login

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 19:00:32 +0000

When catastrophic floods struck Texas on July 4, 2025, killing 78 people, questions quickly emerged about the timing and accessibility of public emergency warnings. In the hours before the disaster, some alerts were delayed amid staffing shortages and funding cuts. Others were posted on private social media platforms, which can often only be viewed with

Physician peer review must balance safety and fairness

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 18:00:45 +0000

Medicine is one of the few professions in which a colleague may understand exactly how difficult the journey has been and simultaneously possess enormous influence over whether another physician is permitted to continue that journey. Becoming a physician requires years of education, medical school, residency, examinations, credentialing, sacrifice, and continual professional development. For surgeons, the

AI-assisted writing can extend a writer’s creative life

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:00:46 +0000

The debate over artificial intelligence (AI) and writing seems destined to have no definitive conclusion. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has pleaded with readers not to write with AI, arguing that writing is inseparable from thinking and that outsourcing the former eventually weakens the latter. Others make a more accommodating case: Use AI as

Testosterone therapy for men requires precision care

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:00:49 +0000

Testosterone is one of the most discussed and misunderstood tools in modern men’s health. On one hand, it is portrayed as a remedy for aging. On the other, its legitimate clinical value is frequently downplayed. The evidence suggests a more nuanced view: Testosterone replacement can be life-changing for appropriately diagnosed hypogonadism, while many broader benefits

The radiologist shortage behind your scan delays

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 15:00:57 +0000

Waiting seven days or more to get a report of your recent CT scan? Welcome to today’s new normal. Until a couple of years ago, the digital transformation of radiology dramatically shortened turnaround times of report delivery. The last-century process of audio dictation, manual transcription, editing, and signing final reports was replaced by direct voice

How the benefits of active sitting change desk work

Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:00:51 +0000

“That which is used develops; that which is not used wastes away.” Hippocrates wrote that around 450 B.C., and it turns out he understood office ergonomics better than we do. Dozens of companies sell “ergonomic” office chairs, and they are all built around the same idea: a backrest, usually armrests, and always lumbar support. If