“The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.” – Osler, “Aequanimitas” Recently, my family and I were leaving a restaurant, and in so doing, we crossed a large parking lot filled with a seemingly en…
Category: KevinMD
An important health care safety net is at risk
EMTALA is born The machine beeps alarmingly as it breathes for your child. The various numbers on the monitor are foreign to you, but you know something isn’t right because the nurse briskly walks away from the stretcher to grab the doctor, who then or…
Your bone fracture, my cash flow: the consequences of private equity in health care
A recent article in Modern Healthcare describes how private equity firms are starting to snatch up specialist physician groups that promise rich revenues, such as orthopedists, dermatologists, and ophthalmologists. Naturally, this is about adding value…
How emotional intelligence makes you a better physician
In the early evenings after work, I thoroughly enjoy taking brisk walks. Walks are a great opportunity to exercise, of course, but I also cherish making time for myself to process the many thoughts that can occupy the mind of a busy physician. My walks…
When patients die, physicians mourn as well
I was driving to work one morning, and as part of my new routine, I listen to The Moth podcast. If you do not know it, it’s a wonderful community of storytellers — compelling stories, told by people from every walk of life. I often find myself dr…
How pneumatic tubes symbolizes our health system
About once or twice a day, everyone on our hospital’s computer network gets an emergency message that scrolls across the bottom of our screens, highlighted in the colors of danger and warning. They include things like a notification that a partic…
Let’s end surprise billing without a Trojan Horse
With August recess at a close, Congress has yet to find a solution to end balance (or “surprise”) billing, where patients are charged the remainder of their medical bill for out-of-network (OON) expenses not reimbursed by their health plan….
It’s time for AI-enabled solutions in health care to live up to their buzz
Artificial intelligence is incredibly buzzy in health care right now, and for a good reason. Other industries are already experiencing AI-enabled radical transformations, like real-time fraud monitoring and detection in banking and finance and instanta…
To extinguish burnout, bring back physician autonomy
In his article, “Medical education needs to stop burning out students — now,” Augustine Choi suggests the culture of medical education is responsible for increasing numbers of depression and burnout among medical students, and suggests that…
Made mistakes? How to spin them for your medical school applications.
Despite more than a dozen years in medical school admissions consulting, I still clearly recall a bright advisee who had improved her grades considerably throughout her college career. But I, unfortunately, had a less than stellar freshman transcript. …
