Category: KevinMD

Medicine is my passion. I love my job, but I am human.

I am a small-town family physician, and I am blessed enough to be living my dream. You see, I have always wanted to be a doctor. I cannot think of one other occupation choice that has ever entered my brain. I have wanted this since I was four-years-old…

How to rekindle your love of medicine

Recently, thousands of new residency and fellowship graduates have earned their wings and will be, mostly metaphorically, hanging out their shingles. Sadly, though, as the excitement of finally finishing training after decades of schooling wears off, e…

The uphill battle for scholars in elderly care

Cognitive decline in older adults has been accepted as a normal part of aging. Recall, episodic memories, processing speed, and divided attention are all expected to decrease with time, but the implications of this decay are rarely discussed. Elderly s…

Rest is not enough for a busy physician

After years of being busy taking care of critically ill and recovering neonates in the neonatal ICU, then coming home to take care of my children, I’m making new decisions. One of them is to learn how to relax and be still. It’s a new experience for me…

Do substituted decisions break the Golden Rule?

The way I learned the Golden Rule was: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Basically, it’s from the New Testament, but the concept goes way back to pre-Christian ancient civilizations in Babylonia, Egypt, India, and C…

I will not stop sacrificing for my medical career

At the moment, I should be studying for my first round of boards, but there is something I can’t get off my mind: sacrifice. If you ask a medical student what they have had to sacrifice to study medicine, the list could go on for days. It could be smal…

What Ocasio-Cortez and Cruz get right about birth control

I think we can all agree that women have a lot more hoops to jump through when it comes to contraception. If a woman wants to go on the pill, she has to go through the bureaucratic process of seeing a doctor and getting a prescription. This is why I am…

Doctors die. But the good ones leave a legacy.

In family medicine residency back in the early 2000s, we had a then-novel curriculum in narrative medicine. During inpatient rounds, we would sometimes get a few minutes to write down our thoughts about a patient’s experience. I remember how cath…

Here’s what I wish I knew as a resident

When I decided to become a doctor, little did I know that medical school and residency would be like a hazing for future physicians. We are broken down mentally and physically and then remade in the image of the “strong” doctor and to admit…

The risk physicians take when going on social media

I am at a conference that is encouraging physicians to engage in social media. This is something I was always a proponent of. I felt strongly that as physicians, we help set the tone of accurate medical information. Especially now in this age of disinf…