“Does my insurance cover this?” I cannot calculate how often a patient poses this inquiry to me assuming wrongly that I have expertise in the insurance and reimbursement aspects of medicine. If I — a gastroenterologist — do not even know ho…
Category: KevinMD
A medical student’s first patient presentation
In medical school, you’re not taught how to give stellar patient presentations. Yes, you’re shown the traditional order of things: “Give an effective one-liner first, then tell the HPI [history of present illness] but only give pertinent info, etc.” Ju…
Private equity in gastroenterology: Is it the future?
An excerpt from Private Equity in Gastroenterology: Navigating the Next Wave. A long time ago, gastroenterologists ran solo or small group practices. Despite the myriad challenges of running a medical business, doctors enjoyed the independence that pri…
Medicine was consuming this medical student. Was it worth it?
For as long as I remember, studying medicine has always been the goal I focused on the most. For years, I thought that I knew the path I was taking, and that I calculated the benefits and drawbacks. However, with time, I learned that no matter how much…
Mild memory loss: Is it Alzheimer’s disease?
As my patients aged along with me, I noticed both the expected increased numbers of people with some form of dementia and even more patients who were worried about this topic. Unless you have been away on a ten-year safari, you are very aware that deme…
MKSAP: 44-year-old man with HIV, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 44-year-old man is evaluated in the office during a routine visit. Medical history is significant for HIV diagnosed at age 25 years, hypert…
Should we write that patients are “pleasant” in medical notes?
When writing medical notes, some clinicians include an appreciation of their patient’s personality and disposition in their opening line (the “chief complaint”), or when they’re wrapping up (in the “assessment and planR…
This story happens every week in clinics like mine and it’s got to stop
Jeanette Brown had lost twenty pounds, and she was worried. “I’m not trying,” she told me at her regular diabetes visit as I pored over her lab results. What I saw sent a chill down my spine: A normal weight, diet controlled diabetic for many years, he…
Doctors, stay human
She was a middle-aged female who was life-flighted from an outlying facility to the tertiary care hospital in which I worked. As she quickly rolled out of the elevator, I ran toward her and saw her blood pressure was tanking with her mentation fluctuat…
Why academic doctors might be less informed about finances
Apart from a minority number of academic physicians, nearly all of the physicians openly discussing finance matters online are either retired or in private practice. The data might be skewed since most practicing physicians don’t work in academia anyw…
