Thirty-six years ago, I arrived an hour early for my first medical school patient care rotation at the East Orange, NJ, VA hospital. Over the years, ‘I’ve seen and learned (and unfortunately also forgotten) a lot about medicine and life. I …
Category: KevinMD
To first-generation college pre-medical students: Your future patients need you
Being a first-generation college student is hard. Being a first-generation college student and being pre-med is even harder. And since education and income are closely linked in the U.S., it’s no surprise that many first-generation college studen…
Reduce health care’s carbon footprint to save our patients
I would like to explore a typical American health care experience through a different lens: energy. Upon entering a hospital, I would see bright lighting and hear the gentle hum from ventilation. If I were to get an MRI, this requires significant energ…
Dealing with the pressures of learning as a physician-in-training
The other day, I happened across a YouTube video called the “Try Not to Look Away Challenge.” There were some obvious video clips, such as a person vomiting, a spider, and a spooky video game. What struck me was a clip from a movie in which a middle-ag…
Alternative cancer therapies and the promise of false hope
How do you respond when patients with a good prognosis want to delay chemotherapy to try an anticancer diet for a few months or visit an unregulated clinic for unproven therapies? I’m asking because of an alarming finding of ASCO’s 2018 National Cancer…
Art therapy and the intersection between chronic illness and mental health
An excerpt from My Beautiful Detour: An Unthinkable Journey from Gutless to Grateful. Managing chronic illness can leave a person susceptible to emotional and mental health issues that can further exacerbate their physical symptoms. Post-traumatic str…
Art therapy and the intersection between chronic illness and mental health
An excerpt from My Beautiful Detour: An Unthinkable Journey from Gutless to Grateful. Managing chronic illness can leave a person susceptible to emotional and mental health issues that can further exacerbate their physical symptoms. Post-traumatic str…
A fatal diagnosis doesn’t mean life is finished
An excerpt from What Does It Feel Like to Die?: Inspiring New Insights into the Experience of Dying. People who are diagnosed with a fatal disease sometimes do more than cope. They grow. They repair or strengthen relationships. They find a deeper spiri…
How to raise a resilient child
An excerpt from the Mayo Clinic Guide to Raising a Healthy Child. If you look it up in the dictionary, you might see the term resilience explained as having the ability to bounce or spring back into shape after being compressed, stretched or bent. Tree…
A physician writes for catharsis
After finishing the pitch for my book at a recent Harvard Writers’ Conference in Boston, I felt relieved and encouraged by the judges’ comments. As I waited for my turn at the podium, I glanced above my notes over the faces of 300 of my fellow attendee…
