The Podcast by KevinMD

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...

Why we should celebrate the Great Resignation

05 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"I see lamenting the Great Resignation. I celebrate it. It's not so much about what people are leaving – but where are they going? What have they em...

Digital apps and sustaining mental health

04 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Digital mental health apps have increased access to mental health care for people around the world. You can find services that fit your specific need...

A nuanced look at the Tuskegee syphilis study

03 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is widely acknowledged as a violation of ethics today, but the social conditions of the time allowed the grave injustices...

High deductible health insurance is bankrupting Americans

02 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Regulators should push health savings accounts (HSA) and businesses should offer them. While HSAs are growing, they are still only available to 30 pe...

Stop health care's great resignation

01 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"As the next COVID-19 variant hits our country, I feel a renewed sense of urgency. We need to move faster to invest in an infrastructure that protects...

Diabetes impacts the whole body, but the foot can't be forgotten

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"As we know, diabetes is a comorbidity that can cause more severe symptoms in COVID-positive patients. This knowledge, along with the sense that diabe...

Why boundaries should be part of your 2022 physician goals

27 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Setting boundaries can look like setting a time limit for patient appointments, availability for email responses, the number of shifts worked this mo...

How not to be a broke doctor

26 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Remember the things that we've discussed as the majority of people are broke. And just because your friends are showing off the 'stuff' things they b...

Opportunities from the coding changes in primary care

25 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"There's a new best practice emerging, one that lets you deliver a high standard of care today but that well-prepares you for a shift to value. We've ...

Pandemic behaviors, dog poop, and the social contract

24 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"It is hard to understand and communicate the uncertainty that comes with evolving science, the changing recommendations as we learn more, the vaccine...

A PSA from a neurologist to the medical community

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Have you ever been to a new city and realized you'd been pronouncing a street or a town name all wrong? Have you ever been from one of those cities a...

I am an ICU nurse. We are drowning.

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Tears and sweat drown my face as I try to rip off my PPE and exit the room. I didn't want to leave him, but I couldn't bear another second in that re...

A milligram of understanding for the vaccine-hesitant

21 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"The starting point is to do our best to approach discussing COVID and vaccination with the appropriate type of empathy and understanding. To understa...

How to convert medical knowledge into digital assets that work for you

20 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Instead of trading up for a faster horse by drawing in the exam room, it felt like I'd just built a motor car. I created a new workflow around my dig...

Guns, the Supreme Court, and physicians' voices

19 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"When my patients asked me about losing weight, I would say, 'Eat less and exercise more.' I know that it is more complicated than that. There are psy...

How to fix the CDC

18 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"A resurgent CDC is necessary to recapture the vitality of U.S. medical science. A scientific researcher alone cannot do this work. This will also req...

A shout out to small hospitals

17 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"I'm a small-time doc in a small town, and I work at a small hospital in the Midwest, and I'm proud of it. The huge university hospitals (like Clevela...

Danielle Ofri, MD on sharing stories and the emotional epidemiology of disease

16 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"This last mile of the COVID pandemic—Omicron or not—is a painstaking one-on-one endeavor. As is most of primary care. Sadly, we now have to deal ...

Medical-legal consulting as a side gig

15 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Medical-legal consulting is a great way to use your medical training in a non-clinical field that helps people. I started this field 14 years ago and...

Fund this: Policies can fill medical funding gaps for all

14 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Instead of trying to earn a spot on a talk show to help a person dealing with costly treatments for illness, perhaps it is best to lobby policymakers...

Autism spectrum disorder and the masks we wear

13 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"In the ongoing saga of the pandemic, there is the debate whether to wear a mask or not. These are physical masks that temporarily hide our face, but ...

Why is Covaxin not in the FDA's toolbox?

12 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"As a clinician who has received two Pfizer doses and a booster without any side effects, I wholeheartedly embrace vaccination to solve this pressing ...

Physician informatics and the chief medical information officer

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"At the beginning of my time as a CMIO, I needed to remain clinical to build camaraderie with my colleagues. This proved essential as the health syste...

Never underestimate the self-flagellation of the physician

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Patients die. This is a tragic truism in the world of medicine. Usually, the patients who die are elderly. Patients die from diabetes and kidney dise...

Health care's goal is in peril

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"The U.S. health care industry has large challenges that can be overcome if we remember why our systems and services exist. We are here to help patien...

Can medicine transcend beyond the clinic walls?

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Absolutely, there are times when you need to be face-to-face with your patient. Yet looking at the broader picture, COVID-19 has shown us that in man...

Innovation in a rural gastroenterology practice using a farm

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Gastroenterology clinics in rural areas have the unique opportunity to innovate the field by working with local community organizations and farms. Pa...

Why and how to get a second opinion

06 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"In the end, the patient-physician relationship is crucial to overall decision-making for any plan of care, treatment, or surgery. There are many vari...

What shared journeys to the afterlife teach about dying well and living better

05 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"The more I spoke with individuals who had experienced a shared crossing event, the more I also noticed repeating patterns. A woman in West Virginia a...

Is Descovy really the better option?

04 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"As individual patients, we often don't think about these costs. In my Instagram poll, nearly everyone taking Descovy reported receiving the drug effe...

Noah Kaufman, MD on the cryptocurrency market and educating physicians about Bitcoin

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Emergency physician and financial planner Noah Kaufman gives a general cryptocurrency market update. He discusses the state of Bitcoin and the impact ...

Bringing the Hippocratic Oath into the venture capital world

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"When I came into the business world, I saw a huge spectrum of ethics and am still shocked at how there aren't any standards. Why must one be in a pro...

Why lifestyle medicine is an urgent priority

01 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Lifestyle medicine's foundational pillars include a specialized look into diet, physical activity, sleep, stress, mood, substance use, and relationsh...

Prioritizing physician wellness: Reducing burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Ultimately, patients need doctors to help them be healthy, and need their doctors to be healthy to help them! Unless interventions are done now, our ...

How physicians can play the hand they're dealt

30 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Anyone can win at poker when dealt a royal flush. But what can you do when the cards you are dealt don't appear winning at all? My answer: Make the b...

Pay heed to the little life traumas that hit us daily

29 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

"Taking stock of all these experiences, I feel like I have no answers. They lead me to a space of unrest and dissatisfaction for not having a pill tha...