I was standing outside the patient room, feeling slightly restless that day. A few days ago, I had just received some news from my doctor that I was not expecting. My mind sifted through the various possibilities and directions this could take me. When…
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “Health system leaders can master this ‘chess game’ by anticipating the next several moves well in advance with the assistance of AI-based predictive analytic tools. This …
As we continue our third year of the pandemic, there have been reports of hostile treatment directed at public health officials and medical personnel. This is escalating a crisis of burnout among health professionals, but there is an insidious, chronic…
In response to a medication administration error that led to the death of a 75-year-old patient, RaDonda Vaught, a registered nurse working in Tennessee, was recently found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and gross negligence of an impaired adu…
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “It’s one of the hard things about anesthesiology. A window opens, you work like all get out, doing all sorts of things while the breeze blows in, then it’s shut again. Sometimes, you…
The CDC has updated its COVID masking and quarantine guidelines as children return to school and more adults return to work at the end of summer. Unfortunately, the new, less restrictive guidelines are premature. As most people know, the current COVID …
“By God’s grace, Dr. Sal!” “Yes, T.J.! What’s the good news?” “Guess what Mr. Thompson’s potassium is now?” “3.1 …” “Wrong! 4.1!” We high-fived each other immediately and bre…
“Mr. Stenson left AMA …” “Why?” I said out loud to my attending. “He left with his IVs in …” said his nurse in disbelief. An hour earlier, before rounds, I sat down with Mr. S to talk about his anxiety at…
“You’re dying.” I can often visualize the impact of my words as soon as they leave my mouth, the heavy weight sinking into the mind and body of my patient as they sit in the stark white hospital bed. It usually isn’t the first t…
More than two months after he died, his name still adorned the whiteboard of the hospital room he inhabited. As I stood there and gazed, recalling the memories he left me with, the nurse who tended to him entered the room and started to cry. Her love f…
