The Podcast by KevinMD
Episodes
Eating disorder myths debunked
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"When people think of eating disorders, the image is often of an emaciated, white teenage girl in the hospital hooked up to feeding tubes. In fact, ea...
Gender inequality is making burnout worse
12 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"If we want to alleviate the fatigue and frustration women physicians are experiencing, we can always start by solving two old problems: (1) All docto...
Thoughts of a retired physician
11 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"COVID-19 melted down the world at a very inopportune time in history. Just as medicine was getting a handle on previously intractable conditions, fro...
Nurses are struggling in isolation
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"It's apparent to most that the dark clouds and stormy waters in the business of health care continue. There is much that needs attention from both he...
A psychiatrist presenting emotion
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Many families still prefer their providers to wear a mask. I have no way to know who carries what political or health views around their mask-wearing...
A physician's infertility story
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"My IVF baby turns 12 this week — and having attempted frozen and fresh IVF cycles six years ago, which did not result in pregnancies — I can also...
Burnout follows from physician to wellness director
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Over the years, trainees poured their hearts out. I began developing wellness electives and curriculum. I ultimately became a founding co-chair of fa...
Patient care is not a spectator sport
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Whether led by the patient or by a primary care physician or nurse practitioner, a proper leadership-based problem-solving methodology is a critical ...
Why the Great Resignation is a great opportunity to renegotiate physician employment contracts
05 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"There are numerous ways your contract (and your life) can be made better. If you do not want to do it for yourself, do it for your patients. A burned...
How to solve burnout with communication
04 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"How does it work? We teach people to speak to one another's values. Have you heard of listening to answer vs. listening to understand? Well, we take ...
Military and medicine: shared risk factors for eating disorder development
03 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"To reduce eating disorder risks and to support those who may be suffering in silence, we need to keep talking and promote awareness of the issues whi...
How reversing Roe v. Wade will affect physicians and patients
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"These changes on the horizon for our country are unlike anything we have ever experienced. We have only experienced an expansion of rights for those ...
A call to dismantle structural heteronormative care
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"The visit with my patient helped to change my perspective. I should not have made assumptions about her based on my implicit bias. I highly recommend...
A story of a good death
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"We must believe that inside, where our spirits live, there is an understanding, a belief, in those people we have loved and who have loved us, that t...
Why is it hard to find grace in medicine?
30 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"We can talk about the system-based approaches we have instituted to avoid burnout and the negative emotional consequences that arise from medical err...
How to maintain your relationships during nursing school
29 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Maintaining a relationship during nursing school takes some effort. Your time is taken up by studying, classes, clinicals and labs. Oh, did I mention...
Why Congress should extend acute care at home waivers
28 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"More studies are needed to fully understand the impact of in-home hospital care programs on quality and cost. Extending the waivers will give physici...
Health care communications during the pandemic era
27 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"At the interpersonal level, people can help to normalize vaccination as the standard among their friends and family–not by lecturing or hectoring, ...
Practicing medicine as a Deaf physician is an uphill battle
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"No one anticipated how the pandemic would impact their Deaf colleagues' work environment and career opportunities. Yet, 15% of adults report some for...
Non-profit work and exploring the life of a pathologist
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we talk to pathologist Hoda Zeinab M. Amer who discusses her work with non-profits, along with her book detailing the behind-the-scen...
Are you financially cheating on your spouse?
24 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"If you have never heard the term 'financial infidelity,' it doesn't mean you don't know what it is. In fact, according to a recent creditcards.com su...
Will Smith's slap is a trauma response
23 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"As physicians, we are masterful at suppressing so many of our emotions, and the thoughts and memories associated with them. However, trauma has a way...
A burnout coach saved my medical career — and possibly my life
22 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I almost quit my job in 2014. I didn't like my life, and I didn't like myself. I had a lot of problems personally and professionally, and I wondered ...
Why I help physicians write
21 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Physicians have a deep well of experiences to draw from in their writing. They witness dramatic episodes of heroism, cures, disappointments, and fail...
A physician's story of dissociative identity disorder
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I had no recollection of this, but as I processed what Yael said, my response was the opposite of what one might expect—I felt tremendous relief! I...
Infertility treatment's hidden costs
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Looking to the future, since I only froze one embryo and my ovary reserve is diminishing, we are hoping to go through another infertility treatment c...
Make technology work for doctors
18 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I know many physicians are already maxed out. Technology can make that worse. As soon as you introduce what will be perceived as new obstacles to mov...
Only patients can save U.S. health care
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Having a physician partner who knows us well, who we can trust, and whose judgment we value exponentially increases the odds of accurately making the...
Are my coping skills a result of my emergency medicine training?
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"We're encouraged to mentally rehearse life-saving procedures for conditions that occur so rarely we might go our entire career without performing the...
Residency interviews and the inner muse
15 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Have you ever wondered how many times death has not come, but could have? On the corner of Church Street and Dubuque how close was I, pausing to asse...
A patient explains the reasons behind doctor hopping
14 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Oh no, it's a doctor hopper. You know who I'm talking about: the patients with twenty previous doctors documented in their chart. The ones who took y...
Listening to the doctor's heart
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"A few months ago, I embarked on an ethnographic study to understand what health care professionals saw as the psychosocial needs of pediatric patient...
Inside the mind of a medical novel writer
12 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, we talk with writer Dustin Grinnell. He takes us behind the scenes on his ideas for his books, his research process, and how he bring...
COVID-19 and the Great Resignation: a catalyst, not the cause
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"The Great Resignation. I doubt there is a medical practice out there that has not been affected by it. And experts predict we are just at the beginni...
Jim Dahle, MD and the White Coat Investor
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, I interview Jim Dahle, creator of the White Coat Investor. He has literally created a new asset class of content: the health care pro...
We are not defined by what we eat
09 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I propose that we look at what each choice in food does for us: How does it make my body feel? How am I able to sleep and move and focus when I eat t...
Who will heal the physician?
08 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Medical errors exist at the far end of a continuum of unexpected events in clinical practice and they are devastating for all involved. Even when car...
What we need to know about environmental toxins
07 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Even low dose mercury toxicity can be harmful to human health in a variety of ways: enhanced free radical stress, reduced glutathione levels, increas...
Finding meaning with medical missions
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"One initiative that more administrators should support is global medical outreach. The ability to practice pure medicine, like the neighborhood docto...
What patients need vs. what patients want
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Patients want more than simply learning about a problem and how to treat it. Patients want reassurance. While I summarized the proposed surgical trea...
Understanding your medical malpractice insurance policy
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Arguably one of the most overlooked yet incredibly important aspects of your malpractice insurance policy is the Consent to Settle Provision. You're ...
Mental illness and suicide: a physician's story
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Sufferers of mental illness often believe that others feel they have control of their symptoms, only having to decide to not be, for example, depress...
Permission to burn the manual
02 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I started planning my escape in late 2020. I would find a way to quit health care, to cease being a practicing physician altogether. Living the life ...
A physician's personal great resignation
01 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Before retirement, I switched everything I cared about to my personal one and unsubscribed to everything I didn't care about. For the first few month...
Why selling will make you a happier doctor
30 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Patients look to providers for guidance, wisdom, and hope. When patients receive a new chronic disease diagnosis, it can feel terminal to the laypers...
Don't be in a hurry to fast
29 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"There is a lot of confusion and outright falsehoods about fasting. You can search the internet for clarity and end up more confused than when you sta...
Inhaler nonadherence and social determinants of health
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"In St. Louis, asthma is the greatest health care inequity, with African-American children having an incidence rate greater than 10x that of white chi...
Listening to pain in our younger patients
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"As a family physician for more than 40 years, I have seen countless patients struggling to alleviate chronic pain, with far too many turning to self-...
A deep passion for palliative medicine
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"COVID has brought us new challenges and a genuine opportunity to be part of the critical response to optimize the care we deliver not just to our pat...
Advocating for a sick parent by confronting physician bias
25 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I spent the first three days sitting next to my dad's hospital bed, watching his chest rise and fall slowly. He was asleep the majority of the time, ...
What clinicians need to know about psychedelic medicine
24 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"What these substances have in common is that they are widely considered to fall into the category of psychedelics. What else they have in common is t...
How much time do physicians spend in the EHR?
23 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Greater demands in the U.S. for billing and regulation-related documentation contribute to the excess time burden of EHR systems compared with other ...
How to cope with pandemic fatigue
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"The COVID-19 pandemic has been raging in the United States for over two years. Health care workers across the country have been chronically pushed to...
Tips for delivering difficult pediatric diagnoses
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I remember our first day in the cystic fibrosis clinic like it was yesterday. I cried in the parking garage and struggled to nurse my daughter in the...
Debunking the myths around asynchronous care
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"So how can health systems and clinicians provide patients with an improved, consumer-friendly experience while also making strides to decrease provid...
A psychiatrist's part-time journey
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"She kept quiet, but she had planted the seed. Interestingly I did not talk much about work during the appointment, so her question stirred my thought...
Pfizer and Moderna must share vaccine technology
18 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Pfizer has a particular onus to help intervene globally as one of the largest and most profitable pharmaceutical companies in the world. With its imm...
Help patients recognize how important their opinions are
17 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Too often in medicine, health care providers assume what patients want or need. Like the crocodile, we may assume all patients would want a tire remo...
When a doctor leaves a practice, who tells the patients?
16 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I am ashamed of the callous, avoidant goodbyes that have been made in my name, and I regret the distress caused by this widely accepted standard. The...
Hidden wonders of human anatomy
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"It turns out that living beings are less like bags of sloshing water, as I imagined in grade school, and more like a stew. While water makes up most ...
Acknowledging and mitigating unconscious bias in health care
14 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Unconscious bias in health care describes associations or attitudes that reflexively alter our perceptions, thereby unintentionally affecting behavio...
Remove race from clinical guidelines
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"We need to address the underlying preventable factors that cause more Black Americans to die of heart attacks and strokes and suffer from high blood ...
Writing is an outlet for this physician
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"There is something about physically putting pen to paper, that connection between your mind and your body that is just very health-inducing. And it t...
How the pandemic affected teen mental health and substance abuse
11 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Two issues drive teen substance use: drug availability and perception of risk. Availability: Today's teens know that obtaining substances is far too ...
Incredible true stories of pioneer patients
10 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"It was probably in early 1803, as Jenner's fame swelled and more doctors were adopting vaccination, when Bell met a farmer with a curious story. The ...
Am I a doctor or a contingency plan?
09 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I suspect that some of the nearly 20 percent of physicians who have quit their jobs during this pandemic needed to feel this relief, too. They needed...
New strategies are needed for mental health treatment
08 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Reducing the occurrence of comorbid mental and physical disorders will require an integrated model combining medical and behavioral health care servi...
Primary care should be the center of gravity in health care
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"If we want a more effective health care system, it needs to be re-engineered to revolve around the true center of gravity – the patient. We must in...
How a legal injustice changed this physician's career
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I do not hesitate to share what I endured. I recognize that there is a code of silence that must be broken when one is involved in legal action. It i...
Nurses are in need of racial healing
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Now more than ever, our profession needs to move toward racial healing. There is an urgent need for nursing to acknowledge its history of racism, bol...
Physicians and the weight of expectations
04 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"What exactly is my obligation to medicine? Am I supposed to practice medicine forever? Is it my duty? Do I have to continue serving my patients, the ...
Can patients just say no to treatment?
03 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Deeming individuals 'non-decisional' for misinformed beliefs that are not representative of a psychiatric illness is inappropriate, unfairly medicali...
Asking for and receiving help is a sign of courageous leadership
02 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Far from signaling weakness, asking for and receiving help is not only a sign of strength, but a sign of courageous leadership. And so, I ask you to ...
To treat future COVID variants, we need more than vaccines
01 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"With government and industry working hand in hand, we can develop and stockpile monoclonal antibody therapeutics in anticipation of variants to come....
I risked my career to save my life
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I have spent years in silence about my career decisions, nervous that my inability to take call and inability to thrive while sleep-deprived could be...
Inside the race to conquer the COVID-19 pandemic
30 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"That year, 2020, Uğur told the crowd, would be the year BioNTech proved the doubters wrong. There was no time to lose. Soon after he'd finished his ...
Support desperate health care workers now, before your life counts on them
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"America's health care workers are on the brink of collapse. If we want them to hold on and be there for us when we are too sick to walk, stand or bre...
How to close gaps in social determinants of health
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"As a doctor, it is pretty humbling to reflect on the fairly minimal impact our health care system has on individuals' overall health. One study I fin...
A physician's new rules of time management
27 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist, woman, mother, wife, friend, mentor. I can't remember a time when I wasn't trying to "work smarter, not harder" t...
Health care and the Latinx experience
26 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Knowing that an important number of Latinx are not yet fully vaccinated and understanding the health care gaps and social disparities that affect thi...
Patients need palliative care to manage the pain of sickle cell disease
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Sickle cell disease (SCD) affects about 100,000 Americans as an inherited genetic disorder with intermittent exacerbations requiring hospitalization....
We're failing people with opioid use disorder
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"We know regulators can move quickly to confront a health crisis because we have seen it in action. During COVID, the nation eased regulatory burdens ...
A body part that fills me with a roller coaster of emotion
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Their absence makes me feel sad, I look around at my peers, envious and curious, Obsessing over when they will show up. When they do, they never seem...
To my patient who is going to lose her hair from chemotherapy
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I understand that the biggest fear you have about going through chemotherapy is losing your hair. I just want to tell you. You will be fine. Trust me...
Changing how we think about "difficult" patients
21 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Our patients go through some very predictable fears and responses to illness and injury. In turn, medical students and residents also think and respo...
Family medicine and the fight for the soul of health care
20 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Overall, the health system in the United States is still not tilting its axes in favor of either primary care or family doctor. What is worse, family...
Kids are not OK: Health care is failing them
19 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Our children are not OK. Our pediatricians are not OK. Please, let us not further ignore and jeopardize the future health of our society. Pediatrics ...
Managing expectations during COVID-19
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I had sent an email to some key people in my organization about managing patients' expectations and how that needed to be addressed differently on an...
How a code profoundly affected this physician
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"There is a small amount of literature about secondary trauma. This means that the people who respond to trauma (firefighters, police, doctors, EMTs, ...
Unrequited: love in the time of COVID-19
16 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"If you knew we are like the 'Two Fridas,' that our hearts are connected, would you change your mind? Would you stop as you are about to cut the arter...
Why do physicians stay in toxic work environments?
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"For the most highly educated and specialized professional on the health care totem pole, physicians put up with a ridiculous amount of nonsense in th...
Are hospitals evil? A physician contract lawyer explains.
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Unfortunately, when negotiating with hospitals I am frequently forced to deal with individuals who need to 'explain' the importance of maintaining fl...
COVID and obstetrics: a physician shares her story
13 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I thought of her with each miscarriage I saw in COVID+ mothers, and during each delivery of premature rupture of membranes due to infection. I though...
Requesting disability accommodations in medical school
12 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I failed my Step 1 medical school board exam by 1 point. This was very hard for me to process, and I consistently wondered if I would have passed if ...
What doctors and soldiers have in common
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"What makes soldiers and doctors good at their jobs are also the very things that make it hard to leave work at work. My former husband was, and is, v...
Cancer treatment and tumor-informed residual disease testing
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Life can feel full of uncertainty when battling cancer, with few guarantees. 'Is there still cancer in my body?' and 'Will it come back?' are common ...
Coming back from the brink of burnout
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I understand what it feels like to be in the depths of depression and hopelessness. I have had a lifelong battle with stuttering, obsessive-compulsiv...
Eating disorders thrive in secrecy, so let's talk about it
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I was diagnosed over 20 years ago, and looking back, I feel privileged that I did meet the stereotype for anorexia and be forced into treatment. Howe...
Tax planning tips for physicians
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Often, physicians only give minimal attention to their financial futures, but potential federal changes could make tax planning even more important. T...
Why health care delivery is an exceptionally different industry
06 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"The business of health care delivery differs markedly from other consumer and service industries in many ways. First and foremost, the economics diff...