As a young medical student, in my early 20s, I was still too inexperienced to know how a physician was “supposed to” act. But I took the model of stoicism that I learned from my East Indian father and applied it to the medical model. Lectur…
Category: KevinMD
How studying abroad helped get me into medicine
Think studying abroad doesn’t fit with your future plans? Think again. Since the day I applied to university, I had been researching how I could incorporate global learning into my undergraduate degree program, while also thinking about my future goals…
Late-career physician? Change your life by being social.
Sixteen months into retirement, the absence of any externally imposed schedule still leaves me partly edgy. Medicare, COBRA, and cell phone bills come due at expected dates. The check goes out the next day, but it could wait another day or a week. Shab…
MKSAP: 67-year-old man with a carotid bruit
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 67-year-old man is evaluated for a carotid bruit detected on routine medical examination. He reports no history of previous focal neurologi…
Stop telling doctors what to do
I enjoy a fairly small private practice and a manageable telepsychiatry side job with good support staff. But even the small scale of my outpatient clinical practice doesn’t fully insulate me from the pain of unnecessary practices that I wish would bec…
Shake up health care leadership. Now.
We are going to need new types of physician leaders to get the change in health care clinicians want. When I observe current physician leaders, I notice the bulk often fall into two distinct groups. On one side, there are the out-of-touch and on the ot…
Medicine’s not what it used to be
When I was accepted to medical school, I debated — hard — whether or not to attend. Out of the physicians I shadowed and interviewed, 19 out of 20 advised me not to become a physician. Their dissatisfaction was rampant. Over and over, I was told, “Don’…
Are Americans really the worst patients?
A recent article was published in the Atlantic about Americans being the worst patients. Americans are part of a broken and dysfunctional health care system with exorbitant costs, a maelstrom of bureaucratic red tape, and insurance coverage that barely…
Why this physician believes in Santa Claus
As we approach Christmas, you only need to go to the nearest mall to witness the frenzied activity in preparation. People scurry around trying to find the perfect gifts for their loved ones and co-workers at the lowest prices. While gift-giving indeed …
Teach mindfulness in medical school
Mindfulness and meditation. Meditation and mindfulness. Allow me to elaborate. I went to medical school in the 1980s. Nobody talked about complementary and alternative approaches to healthcare or mind-body medicine. It wasn’t because we students th…
