A recent New York Times article entitled, “When You’re Told You’re Too Fat to Get Pregnant” discussed a woman’s journey to having a child, which involved being counseled against undergoing fertility treatment due to her hi…
Category: Conditions
MKSAP: 35-year-old man with persistent heartburn
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 35-year-old man is evaluated during a follow-up appointment for persistent heartburn with chronic cough. He has a 1-year history of gastroe…
Your anesthesiologist needs to know if you smoke pot
When Colorado legalized marijuana, it became a pioneer in creating new policies to deal with the drug. Now the state’s surgeons, nurses, and anesthesiologists are becoming pioneers of a different sort in understanding what weed may do to patients who g…
The history of antivaccination sentiment
In 1902, a smallpox outbreak infected thousands of people across the northeastern United States. That year, in Massachusetts alone, 2,314 people were infected, and 284 died. This was not unusual for early-twentieth-century Massachusetts: The smallpox v…
Someone who is both a recalcitrant skeptic and an ardent proponent of childhood vaccines
Amid the contentious dispute over immunization requirements for children, Kelley Watson Snyder stands out: She has been both a recalcitrant skeptic and an ardent proponent of childhood vaccines. Snyder, a Monterey, Calif., mother of two, was a so-calle…
Elon Musk’s girlfriend had eye surgery for depression. Is there science behind that?
Claire Elise Boucher, 31, known professionally as Grimes, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer, and visual artist. Her music incorporates elements of varied styles, including dream pop, R&B, electronic music, and hip hop. Since 2018, B…
The importance of patient education before surgery
A guest column by the American Society of Anesthesiologists, exclusive to KevinMD.com. For years, research and common belief have supported the concept that patient education alters patient behavior and improves patient outcomes. For instance, lifestyl…
Are the concerns about consumer genetic tests overblown?
When the Human Genome Project began in 1990, bioethicists feared that giving people the results of genetic tests would do them a lot more harm than good. Experts feared that individuals who received genetic information about their future health status …
Think of diagnostic excellence as playing smooth jazz
When we think about clinical reasoning, most talks focus on diagnostic errors and the reasons for those errors. The legacy of Kahneman and Tversky focuses on errors and the many named mistakes we make. We focus on avoiding errors, but their work and to…
The calm before the hospital
I’m in the back of an ambulance rig driving 110 miles an hour down the highway with the lights and sirens blaring. The knuckles of my right hand are crushed every four minutes as my patient has contractions. She cries only a bit. She’s sixteen and …
